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Jewish Life Stories: John Lennon’s lawyer, Michael Oren’s mom
This article is also available as a weekly newsletter, “Life Stories,” where we remember those who made an outsize impact in the Jewish world — or just left their community a better or more interesting place. Subscribe here to get “Life Stories” in your inbox every Tuesday.
(JTA) — Leon Wildes, an immigration attorney best known for his years-long, successful battle to keep the U.S. government from deporting the Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono, died Jan. 8 in Manhattan. He was 90.
Wildes started his career in 1959 as a migrations specialist with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) and later served on its board of directors. While working on the Lennon case, he played a key role in shaping a legal remedy allowing law-abiding individuals to remain in the United States and avoid deportation if they are elderly, seriously ill or undergoing severe hardship. It set a precedent that enabled President Barack Obama, in 2012, to establish Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, offering a path to permanent legal residence for immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.
“When you hear about ‘Dreamers,’ that is who it refers to, and that is Dad’s perpetual gift to the world — now numbering well over 1 million people — they are keeping alive the dreams of so many people to pursue the same opportunities for themselves and their own families that he himself was so fortunate to have, and instilling those values in generations to come,” his son, Michael Wildes, said in a eulogy.
Wildes taught immigration law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law for 33 years, and served two terms as president of the Queens Jewish Center.
His survivors include Michael, an immigration lawyer and the longtime mayor of Englewood, New Jersey, and Rabbi Mark Wildes, the founder and director of the Manhattan Jewish Experience on New York’s Upper West Side.
When offered the Lennon case, Wildes acknowledged, “I have no idea who these people are.” And yet, he once wrote, “I think I can say that my career pretty well fit the daydream of an All-American success story for a kid from Olyphant,” the small town in Pennsylvania where he grew up. “With this case, though, I found myself defending not just John and Yoko’s personal dreams, but the foundation of the American Dream itself.”
A champion of the “new pluralism”
Irving M. Levine was an expert on intergroup relations and public policy at the American Jewish Committee. (Courtesy Levine family)
Irving M. Levine, an expert on intergroup relations and public policy who in a 25-year career at the American Jewish Committee advanced policy reforms in education, housing, mental health care, the urban poor, philanthropy and international affairs, died Jan. 11. He was 94. Raised in Brooklyn, Levine served for 25 years in various roles at AJC, including head of urban affairs and, later, director of national affairs. As the principal organizer and chairman of the National Consultation on Ethnic America at Fordham University in June 1968, he championed a “new pluralism” that, unlike the “melting pot” theory,” balanced small group identities with a commitment to society as a whole. “There are many pathways and byways to living in a pluralistic society,” he told the New York Times in a 1982 profile. “People ought to have a chance to identify in the way they feel most comfortable.” After an early retirement, he helped found, with Rabbi Steve Shaw, the Radius Institute, a think tank on new progressive visions for U.S. and Middle East policy.
The American mom of an Israeli diplomat
Marilyn Bornstein was a teacher and family therapist in West Orange, New Jersey. (Courtesy Michael Oren)
In 2021, Marilyn Bornstein, then 92, shared her secrets for a long and happy life: a healthy diet, a busy brain (in 2004, she wrote a novel, “Hold Fast the Time,” set in Israel), a regular schedule and, perhaps most of all, “my incredibly close relationship with my family and friends.” Bornstein, a teacher and family therapist, and her husband Lester, a hospital administrator and founder of the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, raised three children in West Orange, New Jersey, including a son, Michael Oren, who moved to Israel and served four years as Israel’s ambassador to the United States. “In addition to being long, her life was filled with meaning, creativity, spirituality, humor, family, and love,” Oren wrote last week. Marilyn Bornstein died Dec. 29. She was 95.
A versatile scholar of the Middle East
David Pollock speaks on a panel at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s 2018 Barbi Weinberg Founders Conference in Washington, D.C. (Courtesy WINEP)
David Pollock, a former State Department official who brought his expertise in Arabic and Middle East polling to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank in Washington, died Jan. 9 after a long illness. He was 73. A Harvard-trained academic, he joined the State Department in 1996, advising on South Asia and Middle East policy in various positions, including senior advisor for the Broader Middle East. At the Washington Institute, which he joined in 2007, he became a Bernstein Fellow, leading the institute’s incipient Arabic-language program, and expanded its Fikra Forum, a bilingual English-Arabic blog that gives voice to diverse Middle East writers who often cannot publish openly in their native countries. He was the co-author, in 2012, of “Asset Test: How the United States Benefits from Its Alliance with Israel.”
“David was a remarkably versatile scholar-practitioner who made a tremendous impact on U.S. foreign policy as a teacher, U.S. government official, and Washington Institute expert,” the institute’s executive director, Robert Satloff, said in a statement. “David’s legacy is monumental. He will be dearly missed as a brilliant analyst, generous colleague, and a devoted friend.”
A Russian poet and critic of the Kremlin
Russian Jewish poet Lev Rubinstein, a leading figure in the Soviet underground literary scene and frequent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Natalia Senatorova/Wikipedia)
Russian Jewish poet Lev Rubinstein, a leading figure in the Soviet underground literary scene and frequent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died Jan. 14, days after being hit by a car in Moscow. Police are investigating the incident. He was 76. While working as a librarian in the 1970s and 1980s, Rubinstein was a leading light of Moscow Conceptualism, an avant-garde movement that mocked the Soviet-approved doctrine of Social Realism. After the fall of the USSR, he remained a frequent critic of the Kremlin, most recently opposing the war in Ukraine. “In war, people’s souls are destroyed and distorted, and the consequences of a war are at times disastrous even for the generations that come after,” Rubinstein said.
A pioneer of Women’s Studies
Elaine Reuben, as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the late 1960s, helped spread the gospel of Women’s Studies as an interdisciplinary field. (Courtesy Brandeis University)
When women’s studies first entered the university in the 1970s, “merely to assert that women should be studied was a radical act,” according to a history of the field. One of those radicals was Elaine Reuben, who as an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison helped spread the gospel of Women’s Studies as an interdisciplinary field. Shortly after directing Women’s Studies at The George Washington University Graduate School, she co-chaired, starting in 1971, the Modern Language Association Commission on the Status of Women. While teaching in the American Studies program at the University of Maryland, she served, in 1978, as national coordinator of the National Women’s Studies Association. At Brandeis University, she was a board member of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and founded the Reuben/Rifkin Jewish Women Writers Series.
She was also active in a number of progressive Jewish organizations, including the New Israel Fund and J Street. A native of Indianapolis, she was a longtime member of the Fabrengen havurah in Washington. Reuben died Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C. She was 82.
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The post Jewish Life Stories: John Lennon’s lawyer, Michael Oren’s mom appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Senators Urge Secretary of Homeland Security to Secure Northern Border From Gaza Refugees
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a press conference about the United States restricting weapons for Israel, at the US Capitol, Washington, DC. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Six US senators sent a letter to US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas this week requesting that he increase security measures along the northern border in response to Canada accepting an influx of refugees from Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by the terrorist group Hamas.
The six Republican lawmakers — Sens. Marco Rubio (FL), Ted Cruz (TX), Joni Ernst (IA), Tom Cotton (AK), Mike Braun (IN), and Josh Hawley (MO) — said they were “deeply concerned” that refugees from Gaza could sneak into the United States. The senators warned that allowing unvetted Palestinian refugees to cross the border poses a serious national security threat.
“On May 27, 2024, the Government of Canada announced its intent to increase the number of Gazans who will be allowed into their country under temporary special measures,” the senators wrote. “We are deeply concerned and request heightened scrutiny by the US Department of Homeland Security should any of them attempt to enter the United States at ports of entry as well as between ports of entry.”
After arriving in Canada, the Palestinian refugees will be given a “Refugee Travel Document,” which serves as a valid form of identification, the letter claimed, adding that US Citizenship and Immigration Services recognizes these documents as a valid substitute for a passport. The senators warned that “individuals with ties to terrorist groups” could potentially enter into the United States.
The letter argued that the US should maintain “common-sense terrorist screening and vetting” for any individual attempting to enter its borders from a foreign country. The lawmakers lamented that the Biden administration’s “”ax border enforcement” has rendered the country vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks. From April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, the US Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations intercepted over 233 suspected terrorists at the northern border, according to the letter.
“[T]he possibility of terrorists crossing the US-Canada border is deeply concerning given the deep penetration of Gazan society by Hamas,” the senators wrote. “It would be irresponsible for the US to not take necessary heightened precautions when foreigners attempt to enter the United States.”
On Oct. 7, Hamas launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre of 1,200 people across southern Israel. The Palestinian terrorist group also kidnapped over 250 hostages.
In response, Israel launched defensive military operations in Gaza with the aim of freeing the hostages and permanently dislodging Hamas from the neighboring enclave.
The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as the West Bank, still support Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel that started the ongoing war, and they would prefer a “day after” scenario in which Hamas remains in control of Gaza rather than the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, or other Arab countries, according to recent Palestinian polling. The same polling found that, when asked about support for Palestinian political parties and movements, a plurality chose Hamas.
US lawmakers are split along party lines as to whether the United States should accept refugees from Gaza. Republicans are largely opposed to importing refugees from Gaza, arguing that individuals from the war-torn enclave present “a national security risk” to the United States.” In May, Ernst and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sent US President Joe Biden a letter, urging him not to accept any refugees from Gaza.
In June, however, a group of 70 Democratic lawmakers sent Mayorkas a letter, requesting he create “pathways” for more refugees of the Israel-Hamas war to resettle in America.
The post US Senators Urge Secretary of Homeland Security to Secure Northern Border From Gaza Refugees first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Video of Masked Man Vowing ‘Rivers of Blood’ at Paris Olympics Over Israel Support Appears to Be Fake, of Russia Origin
Screenshot of a widely circulated video published on social media showing a masked man vowing that “rivers of blood will flow” at the 2024 Paris Olympics due to France’s support for Israel. According to reports, the video appears to be fake and of Russian origin.
A widely circulated video published on social media this week showing a masked man vowing that “rivers of blood will flow” at the 2024 Paris Olympics due to France’s support for Israel appears to be fake and of Russian origin, according to reports.
The video — published on Tuesday on social media networks including X/Twitter and Telegram — featured a keffiyeh-clad man with his face covered, delivering an Arabic-language address threatening France with violence due to the country’s alleged support for Israel amid its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
Addressing “the people of France” and “French President [Emmanuel] Macron,” the masked individual said, “You supported the Zionist regime in its criminal war against the people of Palestine. You provided Zionists with weapons; you helped murder our brothers and sisters, our children.”
“You invited the Zionists to the Olympic games. You will pay for what you have done!” continued the man, who wore a shirt adorned with a Palestinian flag. “Rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris. This day is approaching, God willing. Allah is the greatest.”
The video, published on X/Twitter by the account @endzionism24 and retweeted by Palestinian activist Ihab Hassan, ended with the speaker holding a prop severed head complete with fake blood up for the camera.
He is not a Palestinian:
A video clip has surfaced showing an individual wearing a keffiyeh and a Palestinian flag badge, threatening France with a “river of blood” at the Olympic Games.
It is glaringly obvious to any Arabic speaker that this person is not Arab; his dialect… pic.twitter.com/rwWGkkbiAi
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) July 23, 2024
Hassan and other social media users immediately noted that the man speaking was clearly not a native Arabic speaker, citing his reasonably fluent but awkward and occasionally incorrect pronunciation.
Many social media users aware of the mispronunciations seemed to blame Israel for the video, implying the clip was a false flag meant to fearmonger and demonize Palestinians and Muslims. They did not address the fact that Israel has access to hundreds of thousands of native Palestinian Arabic speakers who would sound far more convincing than the man in the video.
On Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that “French secret services and their partners have not been able to authenticate the veracity of this video.”
According to researchers at Microsoft, however, the video appears to be part of a Russian-linked disinformation campaign meant to disrupt the Olympics, which began with the opening ceremony on Friday.
The researchers from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center told NBC News that the clip appears to have come from a Russian disinformation group known as Storm-1516, an outgrowth of Russia’s Internet Research Agency.
The latest clip was linked to a similar disinformation video falsely alleging that Ukraine had sent arms to Hamas — a claim for which there is no evidence. According to the researchers, the more recent video appears to be part of a Russian scare campaign meant to disrupt the Olympics.
The video came just days before France’s rail infrastructure was hit on Friday, ahead of the start of the Olympics, with widespread acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from the rest of France and Europe just hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympics. French authorities described the acts as “criminal” and “malicious.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that the sabotage of France’s high-speed rail network was directed by Iran, which Western intelligence agencies have for years labeled as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.
“The sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Olympics was planned and executed under the influence of Iran’s axis of evil and radical Islam,” Katz wrote on X/Twitter. “As I warned my French counterpart [Stéphane Séjourné] this week, based on information held by Israel, Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all Olympic participants. Increased preventive measures must be taken to thwart their plot. The free world must stop Iran now — before it’s too late.”
Katz was referring to a letter he sent on Thursday to Séjourné raising alarm bells about what he described as a plan by Iran to attack Israel’s Olympic delegation.
Darmanin and French National Police both announced previously that they are taking increased security measures to ensure the safety of Israel’s Olympic delegation while they are in Paris amid mounting threats. These measures include providing them with round the clock security from French police. The Israeli delegation will also receive additional security details from Israel’s Shin Bet security agency during the Olympics.
The post Video of Masked Man Vowing ‘Rivers of Blood’ at Paris Olympics Over Israel Support Appears to Be Fake, of Russia Origin first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Top St. Louis Newspaper Endorses US Rep. Cori Bush’s Opponent, Argues Incumbent’s Israel Stance Is ‘Disqualifying’
US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) raises her fist as US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses a pro-Hamas demonstration in Washington, DC. Photo: Reuters/Allison Bailey
The editorial board of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the largest daily newspaper in Missouri, has endorsed the opponent of US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), pointing to the incumbent congresswoman’s lack of legislative accomplishments and stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
The Post-Dispatch argued that Bush’s position on Israel and the Gaza war should be “disqualifying” for any elected representative. The outlet took umbrage with Bush for equating a close democratic ally of the US with a genocidal terrorist organization.
“Israel’s conduct of the war has been far from perfect, but it remains a democracy fighting for survival against an evil terrorist organization. Bush’s tendency to equate both sides — and even to side with the terrorists, as when she cast one of just two House votes against a resolution to bar Hamas members from the US — should in itself be disqualifying for re-election,” the editorial board wrote.
Bush has established herself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress. Only nine days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, Bush called for an “immediate ceasefire” between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. As the war dragged on, Bush’s rhetoric toward Israel sharpened, with the congresswoman accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza and “apartheid” in the West Bank. Bush has also accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza without providing evidence.
Bush seems more interested in pandering to the far-left fringes of the progressive movement than serving her constituents, the Post-Dispatch argued. Bush’s membership in “The Squad” — a clique of far-left progressive, anti-establishment lawmakers in the House of Representatives — has rendered her completely incapable of “accomplishing anything” in the halls of Congress, according to the newspaper.
The editorial board urged its readers to vote for Wesley Bell, pointing to his moderated approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example of his pragmatism and moral clarity.
“On Israel, Bell offers an appropriately measured stance, acknowledging the need to protect Gazan civilians and work toward a two-state solution, while supporting America’s closest ally in the Middle East,” the outlet wrote.
In contrast to Bush, Bell has expressed more sympathy to Israel’s military operations in Gaza, emphatically rejecting the notion that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.”
Moreover, Bell has strengthened his ties with the Jewish community over the course of his campaign. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, donated a reported $5 million to Bell’s campaign through its United Democracy Project super PAC. A group of 30 St. Louis-area rabbis penned a letter endorsing Bell, accusing Bush of a “lack of decency, disregard for history, and for intentionally fueling antisemitism and hatred.” Bell also brought about an official “director of Jewish outreach” to increase turnout among the Jewish community.
A poll commissioned by McLaughlin & Associates and sponsored by the CCA Action Fund, a pro-Bell super PAC, showed Bell with a commanding 56 percent to 33 percent lead over Bush.
Supporters of Israel see the primary race as a prime opportunity to oust another opponent of the Jewish state from the halls of Congress. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a progressive lawmaker, lost his primary race to a pro-Israel challenger on June 25. Over the course of his reelection campaign, Bowman accused Israel of committing “genocide” and enacting “apartheid” against Palestinians. Bowman’s comments incensed Jewish constituents in the leafy suburbs of Westchester County, New York.
Furthermore, observers are looking to the race as a potential indicator of the Democratic electorate’s position on Israel. Opinions of the Jewish state among Democrats have soured in the months following Oct. 7, calling into question whether anti-Israel views are still a liability with American liberals.
The post Top St. Louis Newspaper Endorses US Rep. Cori Bush’s Opponent, Argues Incumbent’s Israel Stance Is ‘Disqualifying’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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