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‘Only in America’: Algemeiner ‘J100’ Pick Elizabeth Pipko Discusses New Role With Republican National Committee

Author, model, and Algemeiner J100 selection Elizabeth Pipko. Photo: Sylvain Von K.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has hired author and model Elizabeth Pipko, whom The Algemeiner selected for its 2023 list of the top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life, as its newest spokesperson.

Pipko, who worked for former US President Donald Trump’s long-shot bid for the White House in 2016, revealed the news on a New York City area radio show last Monday. With the position, she will continue an unplanned career in US politics that has drawn opprobrium from critics who continue to scorn both her modeling career and her support for one of the most controversial American political figures in recent memory.

“‘Swimsuit model joins RNC’ is what I’ve been reading in the press lately,” Pipko told The Algemeiner during an interview on Monday. “Apparently, the fact that I have modeled in a swimsuit supersedes any degrees I’ve earned, any books I’ve written, any advocacy work I’ve done, or any charitable work or anything else I will ever do.”

Born in 1995, Elizabeth “Liz” Pipko is the descendant of Russian Jews who emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States in the 1980s to escape antisemitism and an authoritarian government which reinforced its authority by terrorizing its own citizens.

Her parents used their fresh start in the US to give their children a better life. They kept a young Elizabeth busy studying foreign languages — she learned four, including Mandarin — and violin. In middle school, Pipko was elected captain of the math team, and she went on to earn degrees from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. The opportunities the US accorded Pipko’s family made her fervently patriotic, she told The Algemeiner.

“I’m the daughter of immigrants who came here with $90 in their pockets, and it’s humbling that I’ve been offered this kind of job just one generation removed from their arrival here,” Pipko explained. “It’s significant because it represents, to me and hopefully to other people, what’s possible only in the United States of America. My dad used to tell me stories about how he would walk home instead of taking the subway so that he could afford dinner. Regardless of where people are politically, they should celebrate America’s unique ability to lift people up.”

As recounted in her 2020 memoir, titled Finding My Place: My Parents’ American Dream Come True, becoming a political operative for Trump — as well as being associated with the Republican Party in general — has blocked Pipko from joining the “glitterati” of high fashion, a circle to which she believes she would have likely been admitted with open arms had she chosen to promote the politics of the progressive left. She regrets nothing, however, and believes the fate of the Jewish people in America, as well as that of the US-Israel relationship, hangs on the outcome of this year’s presidential election — which, she hopes, will be a victory for Trump.

“The answer in November is another Trump administration and not another Biden administration,” she said. “We can right now make a direct comparison between how President Biden and President Trump treated Israel and responded to rising antisemitism. There is one president who after two decades of broken promises moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, who recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, who brokered the Abraham Accords and extended protections of Title VI [of the Civil Rights Act] to include antisemitism. Under the current administration, there has been nothing but chaos abroad and rising antisemitism here at home.”

Beyond her political work, Pipko has been active fighting antisemitism, encouraging support for Israel, and promoting Holocaust education. Last year, she launched a new project, “Lest People Forget,” a digital museum designed to allow individuals anywhere to contribute materials in order to help preserve the history of the Holocaust.

For Pipko, a strong America is good for the wellbeing of the Jewish people. When asked to identify the biggest problems facing the US today, she cited declining faith in the country’s principles and ideological polarization as obstacles to a new American Century.

“These days, I reflect on President Ronald Reagan’s warning that freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction,” Pipko said. “When I was a child, my parents told me every second they could about the magnitude of the American experiment and what it continues to mean to the world. Our chances of overcoming the threats we face today and handing down to future generations the America we know and love would be greatly increased by renewed pride in what he have here. Too many of us don’t appreciate it.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post ‘Only in America’: Algemeiner ‘J100’ Pick Elizabeth Pipko Discusses New Role With Republican National Committee first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd

Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang

i24 NewsA suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.

Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”

Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.

The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister

A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo

Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.

Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.

Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.

Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.

Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.

Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.

Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”

Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.

Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.

Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.

Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.

Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.

The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels

View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.

i24 NewsSweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.

The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.

Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.

“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”

The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.

“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.

The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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