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Larger-than-life Bushwick mural shows Israeli and Palestinian children embracing
(New York Jewish Week) – Amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian boys act as symbols of a peaceful future in a new, larger-than-life mural painted this week on the side of a loft building in Bushwick.
The Israeli boy, wearing a kippah and ritual fringes, and the Palestinian boy, who wears a keffiyeh — the black-and-white headscarf often signifying Palestinian nationalism — wrap their arms around each other as they walk off into the sunset underneath the words: “Love’s resilience can rebuild bridges that the war has burned.”
The mural was intended to channel a sense of hope, as well as to shift the prevailing narratives in Bushwick, according to Michelle Mayerson, who helped organize and commission the mural.
“With this particular piece, actually, I wanted to do something about the war,” Mayerson told the New York Jewish Week. “In Bushwick, there is a Free Palestine mural of Muslim woman holding a child and it’s beautiful, tugs at the soul. But it’s one-sided, and I just felt we should have some representation — and even this representation is really not pro-Israel at all. It’s just the fact that there’s a Jewish kid in Bushwick.”
Through her company Brooklyn Street Art, Mayerson serves as a liaison between street and graffiti artists and the real estate companies or landlords who own Brooklyn’s buildings. In some of her work, the building owners approach her about finding an artist to beautify the sides of their property. Other times, the artists approach her with an idea, and she gets a building on board for them to make it into a reality.
In the case of this mural, it was neither. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, Mayerson had already been thinking about what a mural made in response might look like, but found it difficult to convince both artists and building owners of her vision.
“I was trying so hard to be sensitive to everyone. I only wanted to promote love and peace,” Mayerson said. “In Bushwick and in street art in general, people love to push the limits. But with this particular issue, when the idea was hatched, most artists didn’t even want to paint anything even remotely near it,” she added.
But when her friend, a Chilean street artist and muralist who goes by the name De Grupo, reached out to offer condolences and support, everything began falling into place. “I also wanted to get a mural together about the war,” De Grupo recalled.
Now all Mayerson had to do was find the right building. Most of her work is in Bushwick, the epicenter of contemporary street art and murals in New York City.
“I called every contact I had. No one wanted to give me a wall to put anything on there that was controversial,” said Mayerson, who is Jewish. She said Jewish realtors and landlords she spoke to were especially worried about vandalism and about upsetting their tenants.
Eventually, Mayerson managed to secure 40 feet of wall on the side of 49 Wyckoff Avenue, a popular canvas for street artists that often commissions art as well as advertising. Mayerson then went on to fundraise for supplies, lifts and compensation for the artists.
“The way this came together felt like the hand of God,” she said.
Mayerson, De Grupo and a third artist named Manuel Alejandro started designing what the little boys would wear. “Little boys would be wearing jerseys and in the Middle East, what’s the biggest sport? Soccer,” Mayerson said. “So we were thinking, ‘Let’s do a little cheeky little rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi.”
The group decided that the Palestinian boy would wear the blue and maroon jersey of the Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo and the Israeli boy would wear the light blue jersey of longtime Argentina star Lionel Messi, both because they are two of the most recognizable players on Earth and also because each player is popular in those respective regions, as Ronaldo currently plays for Saudi Arabia and Messi has visited Israel.
It wasn’t until the drawing was completed that Mayerson and the artists noticed the combination of the players’ jersey numbers spelled out 10/7, the day of the Hamas attack that left about 1,200 Israelis dead and the beginning of the war.
“That was just a bonus. It didn’t dawn on anybody until we finished the draft,” she said. “We didn’t plan it. It wasn’t something that we had discussed. It was just there. It was a sign of God.”
They also had one of the boys holding a beaten-up teddy bear as a sign of “what they have gone through,” Mayerson said, but they are “still pulling their little toy together and walking towards the sunset.”
“I’m very happy with the idea and the way everybody came together,” De Grupo said.
The image is reminiscent of a famous photograph taken shortly after the 1993 Oslo Accords appearing to show a Palestinian boy and an Israeli boy with their arms around each other’s shoulders that became a symbol of the era’s hope for peace. The photograph has endured and even circulated since Oct. 7 as a vision of an alternate present, one in which there can be peace — even though it was revealed a decade ago to have been staged: Both boys were Jewish.
Whether the new picture lasts as long remains to be seen. Once the group secured a spot to work and funding, they painted the mural over just four days on the weekend of New Year’s Eve. It will be up, Mayerson said, until the building secures its next advertising partnership.
Mayerson said that the mural received both positive and negative feedback when she posted it on her social media page — and she decided to delete the negative comments.
“I didn’t want it to take away from the message and from people looking at it and just seeing something that really is a beautiful picture,” she explained. “What could be bad about two boys from two different cultures and religions just playing together?”
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The post Larger-than-life Bushwick mural shows Israeli and Palestinian children embracing appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
The post Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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