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Role-Playing Game Awards Canceled at Major Conference After Excluding Zionists
Participants at Gen Con in 2023. Photo: Screenshot
An annual awards event that recognizes outstanding achievement for tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) canceled its ceremony at the largest and longest-running gaming convention in North America after receiving backlash for excluding Zionists from being eligible for nomination.
This year, the Creator Recognition in TTRPG (CRIT) Awards updated its code of conduct so that people who “identify as Zionists,” “promote Zionist material,” or “support Zionism” would be ineligible to be nominated for one if its awards.
Facing backlash, the CRIT Awards doubled down on its policy change earlier this month, announcing the decision on social media “so there is no confusion.”
Hello, we at the CRIT Awards would like to take a moment to publicly acknowledge this so there is no confusion.
Thank you, and happy voting! pic.twitter.com/xV5HtpUznY
— CRIT Awards – VOTING OPENED (@crit_awards) June 14, 2024
The process for awarding CRIT Awards is similar to an election for many democratic legislatures. First, members of the TTRPG community submit nominees who are subsequently vetted and voted on in a primary election. The winners of the primary then compete in a general election.
The ceremony announcing the winners of the vote was scheduled to be held at the Gen Con convention in Indianapolis, Indiana in August. However, the CRIT Awards announced this week that it would not be participating in the event, citing unspecified “safety concerns,” after receiving significant backlash for excluding Zionists from eligibility — a decision that critics argued was antisemitic.
This is extremely difficult on us, as we navigate the situation that we are finding ourselves in.
Updates as to what any physical event will look like will come at a later date, until then: pic.twitter.com/4UF4QKh7Zc
— CRIT Awards – VOTING OPENED (@crit_awards) June 25, 2024
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) lambasted the CRIT Awards for its new policy.
“Disqualifying individuals based solely on the fact that they are Zionist — aka they support the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and Israel’s right to exist — is antisemitic,” the civil rights group wrote on X/Twitter.
Neither Gen Con nor the CRIT Awards responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.