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Resolve and Optimism Between Yom Hashoah and Israel’s National Holidays
British teens placed pictures of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas on the train tracks leading to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the notorious Nazi death camp. Photo: JRoots
JNS.org – When I was debating whether to join a command course in the army, my late grandmother Esther told me, “In Auschwitz, we didn’t volunteer. We always tried to hide in the back.”
This advice was the expression of an extreme life experience, the days of hell in the Auschwitz concentration camp. But it also characterizes Jews throughout the generations, and that feeling of insecurity and instability as part of 2,000 years of persecution with the Holocaust as its most terrible and horrific manifestation. One of the great changes brought about by the establishment of the State of Israel was the opportunity to be a Jew with your head held high. These days, many sense that this feeling is eroding. But a historical perspective shows that we still can and should raise our heads proudly.
In 2024, in this period between Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) and Israel’s national holidays—Memorial Day (Yom Hazikaron) and Independence Day (Yom Ha’atzmaut), Israel and the Jewish people are in serious crisis. After months of war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip in the south and Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north, and weeks of anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish demonstrations on U.S. campuses and in various cities around the world, the feeling of persecution is hard to shake.
Indeed, recent surveys by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) reflect this all too well. JPPI’s monthly “Voice of the Jewish People” survey of American Jews found that in April, about 90% of respondents from across the political spectrum (from very liberal to very conservative) reported feeling that “discrimination against Jews has increased.” This follows data from previous surveys showing an increase in the sense of threat they feel as Jews in the United States.
A similar situation is clearly reflected in JPPI’s survey of Israeli society conducted a few days ago. There, for the first time, it was revealed that more Israelis (44%) are not confident in Israel’s victory in the war compared to the 38% who are. It also found an alarming decline in the number of Israeli Jews who are optimistic about the country’s future and their personal future as Israelis. Here in Israel—and there in the world’s largest Jewish community outside Israel—our spirit suffers.
Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), when we face the absolute human evil directed specifically at the Jewish people, likely intensified these feelings. The narratives of those persecuted in the Holocaust echo in the present. Stories of survivors of the killing machinery of Europe reverberate in the stories of those who survived the Oct. 7 massacre.
The images coming to us from the United States—the place where Jews experienced a flourishing unprecedented in history—recall those from a century ago. Scenes of attacks on Jews and blatantly antisemitic chants remind many of the atmosphere in Germany in the 1930s, which culminated in the most terrible genocide of all. When traces of a horrible past can be found in the challenging present, it is clear why many feel despair.
But it is precisely the depths of the current crisis that require us to broaden our gaze, so that it accommodates both past and future. The blow we suffered on Oct. 7 was cruel and costly, in human life and in damage to Israel’s deterrence and national resilience. But it is very far from triumphing over us.
During the long years of exile and their nadir during the Holocaust, all the Jews could do in the face of violent pogroms was pray for a miracle and cry for help—a cry that mostly went unanswered. On Oct. 7, as soon as the extent of the attack by the Hamas butchers became known, civilians and soldiers headed south and fought back. Within a few hours, the Israel Defense Forces mobilized and within about 24 hours launched its counteroffensive. Although Israel’s image as an unshakeable power has taken a hit, its power and its strength are very much intact and robust. The IDF is still a formidable army. The Israeli economy is still sound. Israelis are still determined and able to defend their homeland. Despite the destruction, which requires thoughtful recovery, our situation remains better than it was across the many years of Jewish history.
The same is true outside Israel. It is true that antisemitism is rearing its head. The number of antisemitic attacks reported in Europe and the United States has exponentially increased in recent months. In several European cities, and unfortunately, also on some of the most prestigious American college campuses, Jews are afraid to display their Jewishness openly. And yet, these are still the exceptional cases that prove the rule. Throughout Europe and certainly in the United States, the Jews are a strong group in every sense, whose rights are recognized—chief among them the right to live in security wherever they are. True, we should be vigilant, and the fight against antisemitism should be determined and uncompromising. And yet, broadly speaking, the situation of Jews in the world is better than ever before.
Between Holocaust Remembrance Day and Israel’s national holidays, we need both resolve and optimism. If we thought that our enemies had given up their desire to expel us from the land, we have discovered once again, the hard way, that they are bloodthirsty and seek to destroy the Jewish state. But despite the darkness of our past, when there was no real Jewish sovereignty, and the challenges of the present, we are a strong people with a strong state. The indomitable Jewish spirit—together with the capabilities we have built—will safeguard our future. In these trying days, it is still possible and appropriate to raise our heads a little, and to take in a brighter horizon.
The post Resolve and Optimism Between Yom Hashoah and Israel’s National Holidays first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada
Vancouver police arrested and released one person at the home of Charlotte Kates, director of the terror group Samidoun, in a dramatic raid on Nov. 14. The raid was conducted […]
The post Vancouver police raid a home linked to the director of Samidoun—which is now a terrorist entity in Canada appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, US, March 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alyssa Pointer
President-elect Donald Trump won an overwhelming majority of the votes in New York City (NYC) precincts that were at least a quarter Jewish, according to a data analysis by the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), a prominent Washington DC-based political group.
RJC presented data on Friday affirming the notion that Trump won a higher proportion of the NYC Jewish vote than in previous elections, potentially signaling an ideological shift in the traditionally-liberal voting bloc. According to RJC data, Trump received the “overwhelming” majority of votes in precincts with a Jewish population of at least 25%.
Trump’s 2024 performance among Jews in NYC seems to mark a substantial improvement over the 2020 and 2016 elections, contests in which the president-elect struggled to make inroads among Jewish voters.
Voting data from the 2024 election also indicate that there was a significant shift among Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. President-elect Trump also enjoyed greater success in heavily-Jewish enclaves of deep-blue cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, according to data compiled by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the Los Angeles Times, respectively.
Trump’s increased success among Jewish voters in the Big Apple comes amid simmering anger over surging antisemitism across the country.
In the year following the Hamas slaughter of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel, college campuses have become embroiled in an unrelenting onslaught of protests opposing the Jewish state. Moreover, many Jews have expressed dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, suggesting that the president has not been a firm ally of the Jewish state.
Over the past year, NYC has been ravaged with raucous, often-violent anti-Israel demonstrations and an unrelenting spate of antisemitic hate crimes.
Columbia University, one of the most prestigious higher education institutions in the world, became a poster-child for the anti-Israel campus movement, erecting encampments and holding protests calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Many NYC public schools came embroiled in scandal after teachers presented students with lesson plans that accused Israel of committing “apartheid” and “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Though most national Democrats continue to express support for Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas terrorists, some figures in the party have, over the past year, adopted a more adversarial posture toward the Jewish state, often citing the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a key reason.
High-profile Democrats such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA) have suggested that Israel has perpetrated a “genocide” against Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where Israel has been waging a military campaign targeting terrorists since the Oct. 7 atrocities. Earlier this year, a group of dozens of Democratic lawmakers, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), sent a letter to US President Joe Biden, urging him to “reconsider” approving offensive arms shipments to Israel.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. While courting Jewish voters, Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them once he retains office in January.
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.
The post Trump Won A Majority of Votes In Heavily-Jewish New York City Precincts, Election Data Claims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge
Screenshot of masked men who attempted to rob Jewish man in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Thursday. Photo: Screenshot
The Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York was the target of another attack on Thursday evening, as three men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood.
Footage of the incident was shared on X/Twitter by Yaacov Behrman, liaison of Chabad Headquarters and founder of the Jewish Future Alliance (JFA) nonprofit. It shows the men, whose faces were concealed by hoods and ski masks, chasing the man into the street and through the neighborhood after attempting to accost him.
No arrests have been made.
“He doesn’t give in easily, and I don’t think they got anything,” Behrman tweeted. “The Jewish Future Alliance is deeply concerned not only about the increase in crime but also the fact that, once again, the perpetrators were wearing masks. We need to reinstate mask laws.”
The explosion of an antisemitic hate crime spree in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn has set the Orthodox Jewish community on edge in recent weeks.
Last Tuesday, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. According to multiple accounts, the assailants were two Black teenagers.
That incident was the third time in eight days that an Orthodox resident of Crown Heights was targeted for violence and humiliation. Before then, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily neighborhood, which is heavily Jewish, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.
Most recently, a masked man was caught on video approaching a visibly Jewish father walking with his two sons and grabbing one of the children in broad daylight. He was unable to secure possession of the child, whose father fought back immediately and did not let go of his son. Police later identified the man as Stephan Stowe, 28 — a suspect gang member with an extensive criminal history which includes 33 prior arrests — and charged arrested him attempted kidnapping and endangering the welfare of a child.
In each case, the suspect was allegedly a Black male, a pattern of conduct which continues to strain Black-Jewish relations across the Five Boroughs.
Black-on-Jewish crime is a social issue which has been studied before. In 2022, a report published by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) showed that Orthodox Jews were the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in New York City and that 69 percent of their assailants were African American. Seventy-seven percent of the incidents took place taking in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings, just two resulted in convictions.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” AAA founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner. “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
The problem has become acute in recent years. In July 2023, for example, a 22-year-old Israeli Yeshiva student, who was identifiably Orthodox and visiting New York City for the summer holiday, was stabbed with a screwdriver by one of two men who attacked him after asking whether he was Jewish and had any money. The other punched him in the face. Earlier that year, 10- and 12-year-olds were attacked on Albany Avenue by four African American teens.
According to a report issued in August by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, antisemitic incidents accounted for a striking 65 percent of all felony hate crimes in New York City last year. The report added that throughout the state, nearly 44 percent of all recorded hate crime incidents and 88 percent of religious-based hate crimes targeted Jewish victims.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Attempted Robbery of Jewish Man in Brooklyn Puts Orthodox Community on Edge first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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