Tag Archives: Jews

Israeli-German Jews Find Empathy For Descendants of Nazis

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To spend time in Berlin, Germany is to be surrounded by echoes of the Holocaust. The silhouettes of Jewish victims can be seen in the memorials of concrete coffins emerging from the ground, brass plaques cemented into the sidewalks, sculptures of men, women and children atop pedestals, and the anti-Semitic edicts drawn on placards hoisted on street poles.

Berlin monument for German non-Jewish women seeking to save their Jewish husbands
Berlin monument for Jewish women and children in front of destroyed Jewish cemetery
Statues in Berlin, Germany commemorating the Holocaust

The small community of Israeli Jews who moved to the epicenter of the Jewish genocide since World War II have made a peculiar peace with this past. Some came when the city was divided in two and settled in West Berlin, and others are recent arrivals, former Ukrainians and Russians who prefer Eastern Europe to the Middle East.

They all know the city’s history and they know the oddity that they represent.

Speaking to these Israeli Jews about their relationships with German neighbors is a course of curiosity and incredulity. They offer that perhaps as many as 20% of Germans today are Nazi sympathizers much like their grandparents, and a similar percentage probably don’t think about the past at all. The Israeli-German residents estimate that most non-Jewish Germans are embarrassed about their legacy but don’t want to hate their own flesh-and-blood. Such Germans are left in an awkward situation when they talk with Jews: the unsympathetic descendants of murderers are engaged with the much more sympathetic descendants of their victims, creating an unbalanced state.

The Jewish Berliners dislike the dynamic, and argue that today’s generation of Germans cannot be held responsible for the sins of the past. They argue that today’s Germans have atoned as best they could through memorials and compensation to survivors. These Jews offer that they bemoan the preferred position they have in society as children of victims; they do not want such inherited status. Instead, they seek their righteous rank earned from sympathizing with the challenging constellation that places today’s Germans alongside Jews. The Jews and Germans are equally inheritors of the past, no more, no less.

Today in Berlin, I heard Jews talk about two different Children of the Holocaust. While I have long been familiar with children of Survivors like myself, it was shocking to hear some Jews relate to the grandchildren of Nazis as victims as well, albeit of familial reputational stain rather than of genocide. Perhaps that is how these new German Jews live surrounded by Jewish and Nazi ghosts: imagining that today’s Germans live with those same ghosts as well.

Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, continues below ground with stories of Jewish families destroyed by the Nazis. It sits one block from the Brandenburg Gate, a monument used by Germans to celebrate their power and freedom.

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Biden Enables Anti-Semitism On College Campuses

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The terrible news seems to come out daily: anti-Semitism on the rise in cities and towns across the country. One of the worst locations is college campuses, where the government has the power to reduce the scourge, and refuses to do so.

Beyond The US And Beyond This Year

To be clear, the problem is not just local and not only recent.

In March 2022, United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “I think that our universities, for far too long, have been tolerant of casual or indeed systemic anti-Semitism… it’s important that we have an anti-Semitism task force devoted to rooting out anti-Semitism in education,” calling out the Jew hatred in universities.

US President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13899—Combating Anti-Semitism in December 2019 to address the problem, stating “my Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on university and college campuses.”

The United States government was trying to tackle the issue in November 2017 when it held a hearing to consider interpreting Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect Jewish students and other religious minorities from discrimination. At that time, Rabbi Cooper, Associate Dean, Director Global Social Action Agenda, Simon Wiesenthal Center called out for the government to help combat the hatred, arguing that “The failure of schools and Federal Government to protect Jewish students on campus from harassment is one of the most pressing issues for the American Jewish Community.”

But educational institutions and the government are backing away from providing protections to Jewish students on campus.

Failure of Leadership

The City University of New York (CUNY) has seen an enormous spike in anti-Semitic incidents. To combat the menace, over 100 non-profit institutions wrote a letter on June 28, 2022 to the NYC Council Committee on Higher Education to address “the alarming rise of antisemitism on campuses across the country, and at CUNY in particular.” After being postponed once, the committee finally met to address this serious issue, but CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez did not attend. Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov was angered at the chancellor’s absence and said “last night, in a very cowardly fashion, the chancellor said he won’t appear. Instead he sent a lawyer to represent him. What a sham, what an insult to the Jewish community of New York.“

President Biden is similarly aware of the scourge of anti-Semitism on campuses and opted to delay action until after mid-term elections.

President Biden is aware of the scourge of anti-Semitism on campuses and opted to delay action until after mid-term elections.

Shortly after Biden took office in February 2021, Kara McDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, embraced the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. She said “we must educate ourselves and our communities to recognize antisemitism in its many forms, so that we can call hate by its proper name and take effective action. That is why the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, with its real-world examples, is such an invaluable tool.”

It was the logical and appropriate time for Biden to follow-through on Trump’s EO 13899 and the federal government’s efforts to apply the IHRA definition to Title VI. Title VI “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity that receives Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance.” As most colleges receive federal funds and would collapse without them, and the fact that Jews do not fall neatly into “race, color or national origin,” Jews were counting on inclusion in the Title VI clause together with the working definition of anti-Semitism.

But Biden decided to postpone a decision on the Title VI matter until December 2022, after mid-term elections.

Biden Fears the Far-Left Anti-Zionists

While Biden was willing to champion the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, he fears members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) within his party, and the threat that they will primary incumbent party centrists out of office. The IHRA definition has several references to Israel including “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel“, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” These anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic statements often come from the mouths of Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Cori Bush (D-MO), members of the DSA. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), a leading shrill voice of the DSA, has stated plainly that her squad will come after centrists if the Democratic leadership doesn’t bend to their extremist policy demands, including lambasting Israel. Biden doesn’t want to anger the squad and risk his party’s slim majority.

President Biden with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (left) and Rep. Debbie Dingell, May 2021. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

While studies have shown that “much of the antisemitic activity [on college campuses] was perpetrated by anti-Zionist students and student groups” at schools with “faculty academic boycotters,” and the federal government has a clear pathway to clamp down on the Jew hatred, President Biden has chosen to place party politics ahead of the safety of the young adults of the most persecuted minority in America.

Related articles:

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Rashida Tlaib’s Modern ‘Mein Kampf’

Jews In Jerusalem Still Fighting For ‘Social Justice’

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Social justice is a concept that has been advanced by left-wing Americans into mainstream conversation. The idea covers a number of principles:

  • Access
  • Human rights
  • Participation
  • Equity
  • Diversity

The Jews in Jerusalem are slowly advancing in their movement on each of these principles, however, systemic anti-Semitism at the United Nations and for many Arab Muslim nations, has slowed progress.

Access

Despite the facts that only Jews consider Jerusalem as its holiest location and uniquely made the city its capital, Arab Muslim nations ethnically-cleansed the Old City of Jerusalem of its Jews in the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli war. Transjordan illegally annexed the eastern part of the city including the Old City and the west bank of the Jordan River, and subsequently denied any Jew the ability to visit their holiest sites.

Jordan attacked Israel again in 1967 but lost the ‘West Bank’ and eastern Jerusalem to Israel. While Israel once again allowed Jews to live and visit their holiest city, the Jordanian Waqf was given permission by Israel to administer the Jewish Temple Mount, and limits the time and number of Jews who can visit.

Human Rights

Not long after Jordan annexed lands west of the Jordan River in a move not recognized by almost every country in the world, it passed a citizenship law specifically excluding Jews in article 3. Now under Israeli rule, the Jews of Jerusalem – as well as Arabs – are afforded citizenship in a reversal to Jordan’s anti-Semitic law.

Jordan still enforces its ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, a flagrant violation of the basic human rights of Jews. Remarkably, the world stays mum on the subject, fearing radical Islamic violence.

Participation

The Jews in Jerusalem are marginalized by the United Nations and much of the world. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334 which stated that “Israelis” could not move to eastern Jerusalem. The anti-Zionists call Jews who live and visit ‘settlers’, even if they are not Israeli, and do not use the label for Israeli Arabs who do the same, clearly demonstrating the anti-Jewish nature of the smear.

The UN has set up distinct agencies, committees and inquiries uniquely for the Jewish State and does not afford Israel an opportunity to participate on the same basis as others in a forum stacked against it.

As noted above, the administration of the Temple Mount which holds the al Aqsa mosque is administered solely by Arab Muslims of the Jordanian waqf. Such formulation does not allow Jews to participate in the administration of their holiest site, and has led to their being completely marginalized.

Equity / Restorative Justice

There has been some measure of restorative justice for Jews, in facilitating the migration of Jews back to their ancestral homeland over the past hundred years. Germany has paid the state compensation for its actions in the Holocaust. The United States has invested in the fledgling state and facilitated its ascendency out of a third world emerging state to a thriving liberal democracy. The most persecuted people who faced a genocide have established a safe haven.

But evil still lurks. The Islamic Republic of Iran has stated its desire to destroy Israel. It has several terrorist proxies abutting the Jewish State including Hamas and Hezbollah which have thousands of missiles directed at it. The world is debating how to handle the leading state sponsor of terrorism’s quest for nuclear weapons, even though the answer is obvious to any toddler.

In relation to Jerusalem, the world has done the opposite of restorative justice. It did – and still does not – facilitate and recognize Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel had to reunite the city on its own in a defensive battle. It rebuilds the synagogues (like the Hurva) that Jordan destroyed in the face of global condemnation.

The Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, shortly after its re-opening in March 2010 (photo: First One Through)

Diversity

Israel’s neighbors like Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Iraq and others, are each over 90% Muslim. In contrast, Israel is only 73.9% Jewish and has over 26% of the population from a variety of religions including Muslims, Christians, Druze, Baha’i, Samaritans and others.

Israel’s diversity is seen in its schools and hospitals. The signs in the country are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Its parliament and Supreme Court have people of different religions, ethnic backgrounds, genders and orientation. All of those dynamics are lacking in the other countries of the Middle East.

Many of those same countries that lack diversity attack Israel economically, politically and militarily. They deny the history of the Jews, their rights and any acceptance of the Jewish State. They have stood against ‘normalizing’ the Jewish State in any manner in an aggressive campaign of ‘three denials.‘ These efforts are most pronounced regarding Israel’s capital of Jerusalem, which they seek to revert back to the Arab-only, Jew-free situation they enforced in the eastern half from 1949 to 1967.

Regarding the principles of access, human rights, participation, equity and diversity, Israel stands as a beacon in the Middle East. However, the country still faces many obstacles, mostly from the biased United Nations and at the Jewish Temple Mount. Hopefully those committed to social justice will engage in the hard work to end the systemic anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamic privilege, religious persecution and isolation of the indigenous Jewish people in their ancient homeland and in their holy capital city of Jerusalem.

Related articles:

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East

The Jews of Jerusalem In Situ

Zionism is Justice

Arabs in Jerusalem

Considering Israel’s Model for Arabs Applied to Jews in a Palestinian State

Israel’s Peers and Neighbors

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

It Is NOT Israel Independence Day But Israel REESTABLISHMENT Day

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The Jewish calendar runs at a different pace than the Gregorian or other calendars. Based on the cycles of the moon, it starts with the creation of the world which correlates to the year 3761 BCE. That means that the year 2022 CE is the year 5782 in the Jewish calendar.

In the Hebrew Bible, the first monotheist and forefather of the Jewish people is Abraham. Born as Abram in the year 1948 in the Jewish calendar, he lived his early years in present day southern Iraq in Ur-Kasdim and then Haran. At 75 years old, in the year 2023, he heard the voice of God tell him to move to Canaan, present day Israel. It was there that God told him that the land was an ever-lasting inheritance to his descendants Isaac, Jacob (later Israel) and all of the Children of Israel.

Judaism is not like other religions or even the other monotheistic faiths of Christianity and Islam. Judaism is a particular religion for a particular group of people. It does not have designs to spread to the corners of the Earth in an effort to make others convert. It was designed to be local – to the land of Israel – for the Jewish people. That is why the Bible commands the Jews to visit Jerusalem THREE TIMES EVERY YEAR – Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot – while Islam asks of its adherents to visit Mecca only once in a lifetime. Jews were supposed to stay in the land (certainly before planes and automobiles) while Islam knew that Muslims would live thousands of miles away from its holy city.

From 722BCE onward, many invaders and colonists forced Jews out of their land of inheritance. Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs and others came into the Jewish holy land, killing or hauling Jews to foreign lands, and planting their own flag in Jewish soil.

Yet some Jews remained in the land, and a greater influx of world Jewry commenced during the 19th century. By the late 1860’s CE, Jerusalem was majority Jewish.

In 1948 CE (a curious coincident to the birth of Abraham in 1948 in the Jewish calendar) the modern State of Israel was established on the 5th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar. People often refer to the anniversary of the founding as “Israel Independence Day” but that is a misnomer, as Israel did not become independent from anyone. Jews waited for the British to leave the land and end their mandate before declaring itself a new state, the REESTABLISHED Jewish State in the Jewish homeland.

Next year, May 2023, will mark the 75th year of Israel’s Reestablishment Day, correlating to when the land of Israel was promised by God to the Children of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/ Israel when Abraham was 75 years old in the year 2023 of the Jewish calendar. Let’s celebrate this entire year with particular revelry, as a plurality of Jews now live in the thriving Jewish State with a united Jerusalem once again as its capital.

Israeli flag at the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple Mount (photo: First One Through)

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A Core Tenet of Zionism Is Combatting Anti-Semitism

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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.

Related articles:

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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

Trends in Anti-Muslim and Anti-Semitic Attacks Post-9/11

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As the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States approaches, various news outlets are discussing the animosity towards Muslims that became a reality in America after the terrorist attacks by nineteen Muslim men, directly killed nearly 3,000 people and many times that number indirectly in the years that followed. Other than giving a platform for American Muslims to talk about their experiences with prejudice, little analysis into the hate crime statistics has been shared.

So here it is.

Before the September 11th attacks, almost every religious-based hate crime reported by the FBI was against Jews. From 1998 to 2000, a total of 89 anti-Muslim hate crimes were reported, or about 30 per year. In comparison, over that time period, over 3,500 anti-Jewish attacks were reported by the FBI, or 39 times as many. That dynamic changed with the jihadist terrorism against the USA in 2001.

The spike was immediate and significant.

In 2001, a total of 546 anti-Muslim hate crimes were reported, a 16.5 times jump from the prior year. White people committed 200 of those offenses, a high number relative to the 29 attacks committed by Black people. The numbers declined rapidly in 2002, but the number of anti-Muslim attacks has remained significantly above the pre-9/11 days.

Anti-Muslim attacks increased again with the influx of Muslim refugees from Syria and elsewhere in 2015 and 2016, reaching a high of 381 in 2016. The number of incidents declined significantly since then, with 219 attacks reported in 2019, a 43 percent decline in three years.

In regards to the perpetrators of the offenses, from 2000 to 2009, Whites committed an average of 69.9 attacks per year, compared to 16.8 for Blacks. The numbers increased for both groups in the 2010-2019 decade, with Whites and Blacks committing an average of 97.3 and 25.2 attacks, respectively, representing a jump of 39% for Whites and 50% for Blacks.

By way of comparison, Jews suffer many more hate crimes than Muslims but the trend line is quite different.

Attacks against Jews was consistently above 1,100 attacks per year through the year 2001. It was only in 2002 that anti-Semitic attacks began to decline, reaching a low of 635 attacks in 2014. This was a period marked by the War on Terror around the world, and in Israel, it included the Second Intifada/Two Percent War (2000-2005), the election of a Holocaust denier to the Palestinian presidency and a jihadist terrorist group to a majority of the Palestinian parliament (2005 and 2006) and wars from Gaza after the Hamas takeover of the Strip (2008, 2012 and 2014). Perhaps Americans sympathized with Jews and the Jewish State in the global war on Islamic extremism, as attacks on Jews declined significantly over those thirteen years.

But the trend reversed as anti-Semitism began to spike at the same time as anti-Muslim attacks picked up in 2015. Most recently, crimes against Muslims have been declining while anti-Semitism has been rising.

A review of the offenders perhaps reveals some clues.

From 2000 to 2009, Whites committed an average of 181.0 attacks against Jews while Blacks committed an average of 17.8 attacks per year. But from 2010 to 2019, Whites committed an annual average of 137.3 attacks while Blacks committed 28.5. So while anti-Semitic attacks among Whites declined by 24% over the past decade, it increased 60% among Blacks.

The past decade witnessed a spike in religious-based hate crimes committed by Black people at a greater rate than White people, and against Jews in particular, as the average anti-Semitic hate crimes committed by Whites has declined by 24%. (source: FBI Hate Crime Statistics)

The sharp increase in Black anti-Semitism came most recently in 2018 and 2019, with all-time record levels of attacks by Blacks on Jews. This coincides with the election of the “Squad” to Congress – and two Muslim women, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, in particular – who pushed anti-Semitic tropes that Jews control the military, the press, the government and do it all as a means to profit from the poor. The ridiculous shouts of “from Ferguson to Palestine” shouted by the likes of CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill and “from Detroit to Gaza” shirts sold on Rashida Tlaib’s website, were malicious attempts to portray Jews as militant exploiters of Blacks and Muslims all around the world. Shockingly, Democratic leaders protected their anti-Semitic minority members and advanced anti-Islamophobia measures rather than protecting Jews.

Not surprisingly, attacks against Jews increased and those against Muslims decreased.

In 2019, an average American Jew was roughly three times more likely to suffer a hate crime than an average Muslim (1,032 Jewish victims in a population of 5.7 million versus 227 Muslim victims in a population of 3.3 million). Jews always suffered more than Muslims and the gap is growing.

In summary, there were almost no anti-Muslim attacks in the United States until the Islamic extremist attacks of September 11, 2001. The spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes went on for a year, and the situation then dramatically improved. That turnaround enabled American Muslims to assume positions of power in the United States, which they have used to further protect Muslims and fuel minority attacks against Jews.

Twenty years ago, foreign jihadists hijacked a small part of the U.S. transportation system to viciously attack America’s financial, military and political centers. Today’s jihadists are aggressively weaponizing the U.S. educational system, the government and the media, to attack Jews around the world.

Related First One Through articles:

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

The Insidious Jihad in America

Criticizing Muslim Antisemitism is Not Islamophobia

Victims of Preference

Mum on Black, Brown and Leftist Anti-Semitism

The Global Intifada

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Join Facebook group: Israel Analysis and FirstOneThrough

Torching Each Corner to Get Rid of the Jews

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I had always been told that my paternal grandmother’s family came from Sighet, a decent sized town in Romania along the Ukrainian border. It was considered a small source of familial pride as it was the same home town for Eli Wiesel, the Nobel laureate who wrote about the Holocaust.

Some years ago, upon speaking to my grandmother’s brother about the place where the family grew up as my grandmother died before I was born, I learned that history takes a bit of time, both to happen and to explain.

My great uncle informed me that his family grew up in a small shtetl, a small Jewish village, some miles away from Sighet. One evening, when he was about eight years old, a fire broke out in a corner of the shtetl. All of the people in the town, including himself, rapidly lined up to pass buckets of water one to the other to help put out the flames. He recalled that while he was passing buckets he heard someone shouting that another fire had broken out on the other side of the village. The villagers started to shout how to break the line into two to deal with the second blaze, when they looked up to see a third blaze in another corner of the town. And then a fourth.

The local anti-Semites had come to incinerate their town.

He recalled how the following morning the family grabbed what belongings they could manage, and walked to Sighet as the smoke from his village filled the air. He told me the name of that former village, and as I quickly forgot the foreign sounding name, I internalized how history had forgotten it too.

So, yes, the family did live in Sighet, but it wasn’t really the town of his birth. Our family had already been routed by local anti-Semites a couple of decades before the Nazis came for the Jews of Sighet.

The alt-right relentlessly pursued the Jews of Europe and Russia for hundreds of years, sometimes as part of the ruling class and other times by the hands of a band of locals. In each circumstance, they knew how to rout the small collection of Jews.

The Four Corners of Anti-Semitism Today

In many parts of the world, the ruling class is being taken over by extremists. The alt-left made inroads in America’s Democratic Party with the Democratic Socialists of America getting seats in Congress with members including Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. The DSA was following the playbook of the Labour Party of the United Kingdom, where Jeremy Corbyn pushed anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism and extremist ideas to take over the party.

The DSA invited disgraced anti-Semite and former leader of the British Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn to address their annual convention.

The alt-right still exists around the world and in America but shunned and sidelined by civilized society. Not so the alt-left, which has bonded with Islamic extremists to gain power, and with the alt-right in the cause of setting fire to Jewish homes.

American Jews are surrounded on all sides by anti-Semitic extremists, and there are neither sufficient volunteers to pass buckets to extinguish the flames of hatred nor to expel the sinister arsonists.

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Your Father’s Anti-Semitism

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Bernie Sanders’ Antisemitic and Anti-Zionist Friends

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

The Right Number of Anti-Semites in Congress

Mum on Black, Brown and Leftist Anti-Semitism

Where’s the March Against Anti-Semitism?

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Check Your Kippah Privilege

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Jews have been the most persecuted minority around the world for centuries. Even in the United States, home to the second largest group of Jews (after Israel), an average Jew today is roughly three times more likely to suffer a hate crime than an average Black or LGBT+ person.

Yet Jews go on and live their lives in the U.S. They walk the streets and run businesses knowing that this incredible country is different than others where ancestors lived until pogroms, edicts and wars forced them to leave. The United States not only has the benefit of not having centuries of systemic Jew-hatred built into its history like many Christian and Muslim countries but was built on the notion of equality and liberty. Jews believe that there is finally a government that will protect them.

With such knowledge, Jews outwardly wear their Judaism, literally. Religious Jewish men wear kippahs / yamulkes (head coverings) on their heads throughout the day. They can be seen wearing their tallisim as they walk the streets on the Sabbath. They place mezuzahs on the doorposts of their homes and businesses and don’t even think about plastering the word “kosher” on their restaurants.

Perhaps, until now.

Amid the current spike in attacks on Jews from virtually every part of society – Blacks, Whites, Muslims and the alt-left – the Biden Administrations’ Jewish engagement director, Aaron Keyak, tweeted on May 21:

“It pains me to say this, but if you fear for your life or physical safety take off your kippah and hide your magen david (Star of David).“

This was not a yeshiva principal suggesting how Jewish boys could lessen the chance of being attacked. This was the president of the United States’ Jewish outreach person telling Jews that the environment in the United States today dictates that they should hide. President Biden’s liaison to the Jewish community delivered a message that the U.S. government cannot assure their safety.

Such a statement on its own is horrifying. When it is delivered the same week as Biden extolling Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) after her smear campaign that the Jewish State was intentionally murdering Arabs in a racist bloodlust (rather than defending itself from a genocidal HAMAS terrorist group), it’s terrifying.

“You’re a fighter. And God thank you for being a fighter,” Biden said to Tlaib,after she argued for him to stop the Jewish State’s defense against rocket fire from Palestinian Arabs in Gaza
(Photo/Evan Vucci) (AP)

Jews understand the combined message: the Democratic party is being increasingly taken over by shrill voices which seek to halt the protections that the United States once provided its Jewish citizens and Jewish allies. And the leadership is listening.

Jews in the United States in modern times have been blessed with safety and security and have prospered despite the anti-Semitism prevalent in society. If the government’s new policy is for Jews to check their religious privilege as the alt-left advances its distinctly anti-religion and anti-Zionist campaign, Jews will be forced to trade their prayer books for the Diary of Anne Frank as they canvas which neighbor will hide them from the mob.

Related First One Through articles:

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Ilhan Omar Isn’t Debating Israeli Policy, She is Attacking Americans

Will Biden Enable Hamas’s Sponsors of Iran, Qatar and Turkey

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

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The Cultural Appropriation of the Jewish ‘Promised Land’

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Various segments of western society have become critical about “cultural appropriation” in which the majority group adopts customs of another group without explicitly acknowledging its origins, as to do so would be both stealing and effectively wiping out the essence of the minority culture. The issue is even more concerning when the majority group’s acts of appropriation specifically target religious and holy items of minority groups.

There is no greater example of this trend than the broad theft of the Jewish “Promised Land.”

In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham to leave his home “to the land that I will show you.” When he passed through Shechem (Nablus) God said “I will assign this land to your offspring.” It is a speech which God would repeat throughout the Bible to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (Israel) and the Children of Israel, that this specific land was promised “as an everlasting possession.” (Genesis 17:8) It is a core belief of Judaism.

Over time, non-Jewish musicians and poets would use the phrase “Promised Land” as a generic destination without noting its specific identity to the land of Israel for Jews. Chuck Berry sang about it (later covered by Elvis) in reference to California as a destination for his music to reach the masses. Bruce Springsteen sang about the “promised land” as a place of yearning, a mental and spiritual destination beyond current problems.

When Arab invaders brought Islam into Israel in the seventh and eighth centuries, they seized Jewish holy sites like the Tomb of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs in Hebron and turned it into a mosque. They built the Dome of the Rock atop the Jewish Temple Mount. The Muslims even adopted the notion of a “waqf” as a religious holy space. As opposed to Jews who viewed the land of Israel as holy because it was promised to them by God, Muslims believe that anywhere Muslims conquered and established the supremacy of Islam became a Muslim holy land. As such, Muslims attempted to erase the physical Jewish Promised Land as a land of their own.

Politicians mostly avoid using the term “Promised Land.” They might note that Israel is a “Holy Land” which is “sacred to Jews and Christians and Muslims” as President Obama noted in a national prayer breakfast in 2014, stripping the uniqueness of the Promised Land for Jews. When Obama did use the term “Promised Land” it was as a metaphor for when Black children will have full equality to live in an America devoid of bigotry and racism.

The worst and most feared element of cultural appropriation happens constantly in regards to the “Promised Land,” in which it is either used generically as a metaphor without any connection to Jews, or when applied to the physical land of Israel, it is noted as holy to the three monotheistic faiths and not uniquely promised to the Children of Israel.

We should aspire to follow the example of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. whose final speech in 1968 pulled together the story of the Jewish Promised Land in connection with his desire for a more perfect society:

“Something is happening in Memphis; something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there…

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!“

The “promised land” is commonly used as a metaphor for a perfect society. Let’s strive for that perfection by acknowledging that its foundation is the Jewish State of Israel.

Related First One Through articles:

Martin Luther King and Zionism

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarch and Arab Cultural Appropriation

Linda Sarsour as Pontius Pilate

The Remarkable Tel Jerusalem

The Jewish Holy Land

Jews, Judaism and Israel

The Nation of Israel Prevails

“Flowing with Milk and Honey”

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

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Facts and Stats about the World Zionist Congress Elections

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The World Zionist Congress, the organization started by Theodor Herzl in 1897, is having elections again through March 11, 2020.

The organization’s continued existence – let alone the election – is seemingly a curiosity. Why continue an assembly whose mission has already been achieved? The dream of Jewish sovereignty in part of the Jewish homeland was reached in 1948, and throughout Jerusalem in 1967. Is the dream of Zionism still unfulfilled? Does it morph over time?

Or is the WZC simply a manifestation of a collective aspiration, no different than Israel’s national anthem, the Hatikvah, which still speaks of “The Hope” of returning to the land of Zion. Does it remain the country’s national anthem to this day because the hope remains unfulfilled as being free doesn’t end with sovereignty but with true enduring freedom, that the hope is sovereignty that stretches over the entirety of the Jewish homeland, or because one doesn’t stop aspiring to something like love, once already in love?

The Election

The American Zionist Movement is in charge of running the elections in the United States. AZM has been around for 80 years and is an umbrella group of 33 Zionist groups. Its staff includes three full-time people and three consultants.

The election is open to every Jew over 18 years old (as of June 30, 2020). It costs $7.50 to register for the elections, down from the $10 fee in 2015, as AZM is striving to increase voter turnout.

At stake is the direction of roughly $1 billion, which is the collective budgets of the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, JNF-KKL and Keren Hayesod. Various WZC sub-committees will influence the allocation of resources and policies of those organizations. For example, the international program “Birthright” which brings young Jews for a free trip to Israel might either visit Judea and Samaria or be restricted from visiting it depending on whether right-leaning or left-leaning slates get elected to the WZC.

There are fifteen slates in this 2020 election, representing roughly 1,800 candidates with a wide range of viewpoints. A review of those slates can be found HERE.

The WZC Election by the Numbers

The draw of the WZC appears to have faded over the last few decades, at least in the United States. The 56,450 votes cast in 2015 at the last WZC election, was a paltry sum by historical standards. While WZC elections are supposed to be held every five years, it was not held in 2010. In 2006, a total of 75,686 Americans voted in the elections, a total of 88,753 in 2002, and in 1997 the total was 107,832. If those drops of 18%, 15% and 25% between elections look depressing, consider that the 1987 WZC election had 210,957 Americans voting, meaning that during the eventful decade between 1987 and 1997 – those years which included the First Intifada and the Oslo Accords – American apathy towards Israel doubled, if one could use votes in the WZC as a proxy.

Perhaps it is unfair to state that American Jews were distancing themselves from Israel in the 1987 to 1997 decade. The Oslo Accords were controversial for many, and maybe Americans concluded that the concept of the Israeli government considering the views of American Jews when making policy was either historical or a marketing ploy. Just as the national anthem of Israel, “The Hope,” would appear as a more logical dream for people OUTSIDE of Israel than its inhabitants, the idea of being a “free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem,” may have held – and holds – different meanings for Israeli and Diaspora Jews: for the former it is a dream of daily peace, while for Diaspora Jews it is an aspiration to bond the Jewish collective of the people, religion and land. Zionism means different things to people around the world, and certainly on a daily practical level for Israelis living in a hostile neighborhood. The Israeli government may care about the opinions of Diaspora Jews, but within limits, and certainly as it relates to daily security.

In regards to the WZC elections, the United States is unique in that it reaches out to its Jews to vote for its representatives. Of the 525 seats in the World Zionist Congress at this election, the United States is allotted 152, or 29% of the seats. Roughly 37% of the seats go to Israel and 34% to the rest of the world based very roughly on the world’s global Jewish population. Israel allocates its seats based on the members of Knesset and the countries of the world allow their major Jewish organizations to directly decide on their representatives.

The WZC voter turnout has been spotty. The United States has eleven states with populations which are over two per cent Jewish. These “Jewish states” did not have great turnouts at the 2015 WZC elections, with fewer than half having one percent of their populations voting. Meanwhile, some smaller states like Oklahoma and Arizona had great turnouts in 2015, with 4.9% and 2.9% of the Jewish populations voting, respectively. As a consequence, the Jews of Oklahoma had a greater impact than the Jews of Oregon, even while the Jewish population was less than one-tenth the size.

2015 World Zionist Election
States with Highest Percentage Jewish Population

State Per Cent Jewish Population Per Cent of Jews Voting in WZC
California 3.2% 0.5%
Connecticut 3.3% 0.8%
Washington, D.C. 4.3% 1.6%
Florida 3.3% 0.4%
Illinois 2.3% 1.4%
Massachusetts 4.1% 0.8%
Maryland 4.0% 1.2%
New Jersey 5.9% 1.4%
Nevada 2.7% 0.1%
New York 8.9% 1.0%
Pennsylvania 2.3% 0.7%

The global community got seats according to their Jewish populations. While Israel and the USA got 190 and 145 seats at the 2015 election, respectively, other countries received significantly fewer seats: France (23), Canada (20), England (19), Australia (13) and Argentina and Russia each with 10. There were 25 countries with fewer than ten seats. Some countries received “penalties” from the Zionist Supreme Court which reduced their seats, resulting in Germany and the Netherlands each having no representation.

The political leanings of the various countries’ ruling authorities were clear. France voted 30% of their members to Likud and England 36%, while Australia only allotted 8% of the seats to Likud. Putting the various parties into groupings of Left, Center and Right shows an interesting divide in the Jewish world’s orientation towards their religious and political leanings as shown in the table below:

2015 World Zionist Election
Global Religious and Political Leanings

Left Center Right
Israel 29% 21% 50%
US 61% 5% 34%
ROW 47% 14% 39%

Note: Left consists of Kadima, Mercaz Olami, Zionist Union, Arzenu and Meretz; Center consists of Yesh Atid, Kulanu, Confederation, Over the Rainbow and undefined; Right consists of Likud, Mizrachi, Beiteinu Olami and Ohavei Tzion

Israel is more right-leaning and the United States is much more left-leaning than the rest of the world. Almost no Jews in the US vote for centrist slates, a unique phenomenon.

If you want to have your opinions reflected in the direction of Zionism over the next five years, register and vote at zionistelection.org

Related First One Trough articles:

I am a Zionist. A Deep Zionist. An Amazed Zionist. A Loud Zionist.

The Anger from the Zionist Center

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