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Arthur Szyk and The Modern Maccabees
Arthur Szyk. Trumpeldor’s Defense of Tel Hai. Lodz, 1936
On this Hanukkah, entering week 10 in the war with Hamas, can we not call the men and women of Israel—who fight for the right to Jewish survival—our “modern Maccabees?” Indeed, in the context of Arab terror attacks in the land of Israel in 1920 and again in 1936, Arthur Szyk created a master artwork of heroic Jews destined to be called The Modern Maccabees.
It was one year after the 1935 Nuremberg racial laws were enacted in Germany that Szyk, in Łódź, Poland, painted Trumpeldor’s Defense of Tel Hai. This illumination encouraged Jews in 1936 Palestine to defend themselves against Arab marauders in the same spirit and with the same courage and heroism as did the Jews of the Galilean Tel Hai settlement in 1920, led by the legendary Captain Joseph Trumpeldor. The timing of this painting was simultaneously directed toward the Jews of Germany and Poland, calling upon them to respond heroically toward the antisemitic mobs and chants in their respective countries. The artwork was to be renamed The Modern Maccabees a few years later.
Today, we know what those chants and actions of Arab terror groups of the 20s and 30s have morphed into–the Hamas massacre of 10/7. We know where the seeds of German nationalism of the 20s and 30s led—to the single most traumatic event in Jewish history. It hardly seems surprising then that the Mufti of Jerusalem and Adolph Hitler would adopt each other as friends, as comrades of evil, who had Jew hatred and mass murder as their shared goal. Hatred of Jews, antisemitism, and its physical assault on the integrity of Jewish lives, now as then, has re-invaded our planet. It has forcefully spread as an ancient, medieval, and modern disease throughout our global sphere among differing cultures, peoples and lands, united in common cause. Against this backdrop, Jews and their friends worldwide can look to the modern Israeli Maccabees of our day—the Israel Defense Forces—for inspiration to act Maccabean-like in their own way. By speaking out in defense of their actions and by lending larger than life financial support to organizations that do likewise we prevent ourselves from becoming merely bystanders to history rather than active participants in shaping it.
Arthur Szyk unveiling The Modern Maccabees in the office of the Committee for a Jewish Army. New York, July 1942.
By mid-July 1942, with more than one million of his people murdered by the Nazis, and two and one-half million Jews being starved to death in ghettos while millions more awaited the German extermination camps, Arthur Szyk reinforced his themes of Jewish self-defense and heroism by symbolically renaming his Trumpeldor piece The Modern Maccabees. It coincided with the mission of the Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews (a group that advocated the formation of a Jewish fighting force recruited from refugees of Hitler Germany and young Jews from Palestine) who would fight beside the allies of America, the United Kingdom, and free Europe. In a broader sense, Szyk’s work of art also called upon these nations directly, led by America, his adopted home, to courageously sustain their mission in defeating the Axis of Evil and thereby rescue Jewish lives.
A single enlarged blowup of this painting, in black and white, was presented to the Committee for a Jewish Army and hung in its New York offices. To mark the occasion, Szyk unveiled his call-to-arms by lifting an American flag covering it. The artist-warrior understood the symbolism, the strength of the United States, and the role it could uniquely play in defeating the enemies of the Jewish people. Today its warships standing in the Mediterranean do not go unnoticed, shedding light on America’s military standing with Israel and its people amidst the sea of raging waters in the Middle East.
In the bottom center of Szyk’s painting, he has calligraphed the Hebrew words attributed to the first century sage, Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” Surely, the soldiers of the IDF stand on the front lines of self-defense, but which nations and peoples will project moral clarity and physical strength in joining America to stand beside Israel in its fight? Who are the leaders and members of that committee today?
At this hour, the descendants of Szyk’s modern Maccabees, like those Maccabees of the first Hanukkah of old, are prepared to echo the dying words of Joseph Trumpedor: “It is good to die for our land.” To this we may well add: “It is good to live safely in our land.”
Irvin Ungar is the curator emeritus of The Arthur Szyk Society. His book, Arthur Szyk: Soldier in Art, was a winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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