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Sponsoring Israeli missiles doesn’t fly for everyone in a Facebook group for ‘Kosher Restaurant Foodies’
(JTA) — Elan Kornblum, the creator of the popular Facebook group Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies, has not been shy about marshaling the group’s 98,000 members in support of a charitable cause.
The group, whose usual fodder focuses on the quality of food (and rabbinic certification) at kosher restaurants around the world, has mobilized in response to extreme weather events, community members’ medical expenses and to feed the hungry. In the days following Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, it sent boxes upon boxes of food to JFK Airport, to be loaded onto specially chartered flights to Tel Aviv.
Five weeks later, though, the group erupted over another of Kornblum’s donations to Israel: an IDF artillery shell headed for Gaza that was scrawled with the text, “GKR Foodies stands with Israel.” Kornblum said he was able to get the message on the missile via a gift of $180 to an Israeli charity.
“On behalf of the group, the IDF soldiers will be sending a present to Hamas tomorrow,” Kornblum wrote in a post on Nov. 12. “Specifically this 155 mm artillery shell. Yes, you can get writing on a missle [sic]. Jewish ingenuity at its finest– Introducing the MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE CAMPAIGN!”
Kornblum wrote that the money would go to purchase supplies for soldiers. The public post received more than 750 likes and was shared more than 60 times outside of the group. But not everyone agreed that it was a good idea.
“I hate it,” one member said. Another replied to the post, “May Hashem have mercy on us all.”
The discussion over the fundraiser, which spawned more than 200 comments, is an example of how debate over the Israel-Hamas war has seeped even into Jewish spaces that are meant to be a sanctuary from the sometimes all-consuming political discourse on social media. And, in a forum composed largely of observant Jews, who tend to be more centrist and right-wing, on average, than American Jewry at large, it threw the fault lines of communal discussion into stark relief.
Some commenters objected to the fundraiser because they support a ceasefire — a calling-card of left-wing Jews. But even some who support Israel’s campaign in Gaza said they were uncomfortable with having the name of their Facebook group written on a weapon of war.
“If somebody said, ‘Do you consent to being part of this?’ I would have said, ‘absolutely not,’ and I would probably have a much stronger reaction,” said Daniel Saleman, a New Jersey-based accountant and member of Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies since 2015. “I had absolutely no say in it.”
Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies isn’t the only social media operation to find itself dealing with matters of war and peace post-Oct. 7. Jewish influencers whose content does not typically center around Israel have found their roles shift over the past six weeks, as they feel compelled to use their platforms to weigh in on the war.
“I feel a moral responsibility to speak about it, specifically because I don’t feel like anyone who is not Jewish does talk about it,” Morgan Raum, a Jewish food influencer with more than 150,000 followers on Instagram, told NBC News earlier this month. “If I’m not talking about it, who is?”
The “Foodies” Facebook group was born from a print magazine, Great Kosher Restaurants, that has since become an online guide to kosher dining options. The Facebook group has 10 administrators, including Kornblum, along with one moderator, all of whom manage group membership, settings and posts.
Many dissenters on Great Kosher Restaurant Foodies objected to the tone of the post. Saleman commented that the post was “in poor taste.” He added that because the post settings were public, it could be used as anti-Israel propaganda. Other commenters shared similar sentiments.
Comments on the post called it “very misguided and in terrible taste,” and “abhorrent and gut wrenching.” A member who said they were a parent of two Israeli soldiers wrote, “Let’s not glorify war, let’s not make light of the war that is being fought for our country and our people.” Another group member wrote, “This is one of the most horrific things I have ever seen. That a Jew would do this.”
The backlash came quickly. Less than an hour after the post went up, Kornblum commented defending it. “I’ll say it again, IDF uses missles [sic] to destroy Hamas buildings and targets, it does not use it for civilians,” he wrote. “I can’t believe we need to explain that in this group.”
As discussion on the post devolved from criticism of the campaign to personal attacks on group members, Kornblum shut down the comments section, one of his tools when conversation gets too negative. He reopened the comment feed the following morning, then closed it down again — after posting another comment defending the missile message, at least his fourth since publishing the post.
“For the record, I’ll just note there are about 450 reactions on this post,” he wrote. “287 likes, 145 loves, 3 angry. We keep posts up dependent on what the group as a majority wants. I think the group has spoken. Thanks. Talk later.”
Kornblum told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he saw the donation as a standard way to demonstrate support for Israel at war — of a piece with the group’s other efforts.
“Being that we run the group and we stand behind Israel, this was my way of showing it,” Kornblum told JTA. He’s used the group’s name in other contexts such as deaths or lifecycle events, he said.
“A lot of times I’ll say, ‘On behalf of the group, we send condolences,’ ‘We send mazel tov,’” he added. “So when I speak on behalf of the group, it’s myself and my company and the group. So I thought it was a nice message.”
This is not the first time a message written on an Israeli rocket has spread online. On Oct. 29, the day after “Friends” co-star Matthew Perry died, an image of a rocket with the Hebrew message, “This one is for Chandler Bing,” appears to have first been shared on Instagram by comedian and digital creator Matan Zur, who is currently serving in the Israel Defense Forces. The image went viral when it was shared by Israeli tech blogger Hillel Fuld on X. That picture, too, generated backlash for making light of both the war and of Perry’s death.
Writing messages on rockets is a tradition that dates back at least to World War II. American soldiers in a Black platoon in 1945 famously posed for a picture with a basket of ammunition tagged with the words “Happy Easter Adolph.” Another famous photo from 1944 or 1945 shows Joseph Wald, who served in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, holding an artillery shell bearing the Hebrew words “Gift for Hitler.”
Left: Technician Fifth Grade William E. Thomas and Private First Class Joseph Jackson pose with artillery shells on Easter morning, 1945; Right: Joseph Wald, a soldier in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, holds an artillery shell inscribed with the words, “a gift for Hitler” in Hebrew, sometime in 1944 or 1945. (Images via Wikimedia Commons. Design by Jackie Hajdenberg)
And over the course of the Ukraine war, a project similar to the Israeli campaign run through SignMyRocket.com was created by Ukrainian information technology student Anton Sokolenko. The initiative has raised nearly $1.7 million dollars and written more than 5,100 messages across a variety of weapons, according to its website.
The donation page for the Israeli project, on the website of a charity called the Chesed Fund, says more than $12,000 has been raised for this particular fundraiser for IDF soldiers, which pays for protective gear. But the Chesed Fund did not respond to a JTA inquiry about the missile messages, and it isn’t clear from the webpage that having a message written on a bomb is an option. To tag a missile, donors must first donate through the webpage and then call one of two U.S. phone numbers to relay the proposed text. The phone numbers do not appear on the Chesed Fund site, and the missile initiative has spread only through word-of-mouth and social media posts like Kornblum’s.
Kornblum is unfazed by the debate over his post. He said this was not the first time discussion on the group has veered away from its namesake subject, kosher restaurants. He has no regrets, says he would write the same post again, and added that if members left the group over the missile message, “that’s totally up to them, that’s OK.”
“I’m not afraid to talk about hot topics,” he said. “We do it a lot. We’ve spoken about the Pride Parade and we’ve spoken about BLM on the group, we’ve spoken about, obviously, COVID.”
Saleman, who objected to Kornblum’s post, agreed that discussion of the war wasn’t necessarily out of place in the Facebook group.
“You can’t really separate Jewish culture and kosher food and Israel,” he said. “So obviously, as things are happening in Israel, it makes sense that there are definitely certain portions of the group that are kind of dedicated to that.”
And he said he’d seen more contentious arguments between the group’s users — about condiments.
“There’s definitely lots of controversy but it’s not this type of controversy,” Saleman said. “People can get very heated about charging for spicy mayo. And the people have probably gotten more heated about that than they did about the bomb thing.”
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The post Sponsoring Israeli missiles doesn’t fly for everyone in a Facebook group for ‘Kosher Restaurant Foodies’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence
McGill University has canceled an on-campus event planned by Jewish students—and temporarily halted bookings for all extracurricular activities—following threats of violence along with a death threat, as outlined in a […]
The post McGill cancels talk with former Hamas insider turned Israel advocate, citing fears of violence appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel
US Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) at a press conference in Bergenfield, New Jersey, US on June 5, 2023. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
US Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) on Tuesday introduced bipartisan legislation to cut off federal funding from universities that engage in boycotts of Israel.
The legislation, titled “The Protect Economic Freedom Act,” would render universities that participate in the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel ineligible for federal funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, prohibiting them from receiving federal student aid. The bill would also mandate that colleges and universities submit evidence that they are not participating in commercial boycotts against the Jewish state.
“Enough is enough. Appeasing the antisemitic mobs on college campuses threatens the safety of Jewish students and faculty and it undermines the relationship between the US and one of our strongest allies. If an institution is going to capitulate to the BDS movement, there will be consequences — starting with the Protect Economic Freedom Act,” Foxx, chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement.
Gottheimer added that the legislation is necessary to thwart the surging tide of antisemitism on college campuses. Although the lawmaker noted that students are allowed to engage in free expression regarding the ongoing war in Gaza, he argued that blanket boycotts against Israel endanger the lives of Jewish students and community members.
“The goal of the antisemitic BDS movement is to annihilate the democratic State of Israel, America’s critical ally in the global fight against terror. While students and faculty are free to speak their minds and disagree on policy issues, we cannot allow antisemitism to run rampant and risk the safety and security of Jewish students, staff, faculty, and guests on college campuses,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “The new bipartisan Protect Economic Freedom Act will give the Department of Education a critical new tool to combat the antisemitic BDS movement on college campuses. Now more than ever, we must take the necessary steps to protect our Jewish community.”
The legislation instructs the US Department of Education to keep a record of universities that refuse to confirm their non-participation in anti-Israel boycotts. The list of universities in non-compliance with the legislation would be made publicly available.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre acrosssouthern Israel, universities across the country have found themselves embroiled in controversies regarding campus antisemitism. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Israel, hordes of students and faculty orchestrated protests and demonstrations condemning the Jewish state. Student groups at elite universities such as Harvard and Columbia issued statements blaming Israel for the attacks and expressing support for Hamas.
Several high-profile universities have also shown a significant level of tolerance for anti-Jewish sentiment festering on their campuses. Northwestern University, for example, capitulated to demands of anti-Israel activists to remove Sabra Hummus from campus dining halls because of its connections to Israel. At Stanford University, Jewish students have reported being forced to condemn Israel before being allowed to enter campus parties. Students at the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University launched unsuccessful attempts to convince the university to divest endowment funds from companies tied to Israel.
The post US Lawmakers Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Strip Funding From Universities That Boycott Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Harvard University’s Office of the Chaplain and Religious and Spiritual Life is being criticized by a rising Jewish civil rights activist for omitting any mention of antisemitism from a statement addressing antisemitic behavior.
The sharp words followed the office’s response to a hateful demonstration on campus in which pro-Hamas students stood outside Harvard Hillel and called for it to banned from campus. Such a demand is not new, as it began earlier this semester at the direction of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) organization, which coordinates the lion’s share of anti-Zionist activity on college campuses.
As seen in footage of the demonstration, the students chanted “Zionists aren’t welcome here!” and held signs which accused the organization — the largest campus organization for Jewish students in the world — of embracing “war criminals” and genocide.
Addressing the behavior, Harvard Chaplains issued a statement, which is now being pointed to as a symbol of higher education’s indifference to the unique hatred of antisemitism, as well as its permutation as anti-Zionism.
“We have noticed a trend of expression in which entire groups of students are told they ‘are not welcome here’ because of their religious, cultural, ethnic, or political commitments and identities, or are targeted through acts of vandalism,” the office said, seemingly circumventing the matter at hand. “We find this trend disturbing and anathema to the dialogue and connection across lines of difference that must be a central value and practice of a pluralistic institution of higher learning.”
It continued, “Student groups who are singled out in this way experience such language and acts of vandalism as a painful attack that undermines the acceptance and flourishing of religious diversity here at Harvard. Let us all endeavor to care for one another in these divisive times.”
Recent Harvard graduate Shabbos Kestenbaum, who addressed the Republican National Convention in August to discuss the ways which progressive bias in higher education fosters anti-Zionism and anti-Western ideologies, described the statement as a moral failure in a post on X/Twitter on Tuesday.
“Disappointing,” he said. “After Harvard Jews were told by masked students ‘Zionists aren’t welcome here’ outside of the Hillel, the Chaplain Office finally released a statement that did not include the words Jew, Zionism, Israel, or antisemitism. A total abdication of religious responsibility.”
Kestenbaum noted in a later statement that Harvard’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, Sherri Ann Charleston, has so far declined to speak on the issue at all. He charged that when Charleston “isn’t plagiarizing, she and DEI normalize antisemitism,” referring to evidence, first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, that Charleston is a serial plagiarist who climbed the hierarchy of the higher education establishment by pilfering other people’s scholarship.
Harvard University president Alan Garber — installed after former president Claudine Gay resigned following revelations that she is also a serial plagiarist — has, experts have said, been inconsistent in managing the campus’ unrest.
During summer, The Harvard Crimson reported that Harvard downgraded “disciplinary sanctions” it levied against several pro-Hamas protesters it suspended for illegally occupying Harvard Yard for nearly five weeks, a reversal of policy which defied the university’s previous statements regarding the matter. Unrepentant, the students, members of the group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (HOOP), celebrated the revocation of the punishments on social media and promised to disrupt the campus again.
Earlier this semester, however, Garber appeared to denounce a pro-Hamas student group which marked the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by praising the brutal invasion as an act of revolutionary justice that should be repeated until the Jewish state is destroyed, despite having earlier announced a new “institutional neutrality” policy which ostensibly prohibits the university from weighing in on contentious political issues. While Garber ultimately has said more than Gay when the same group praised the Oct. 7 massacre last academic year, his administration’s handling of campus antisemitism has been ambiguous, according to observers — and described even by students who benefited from its being so as “caving in.”
The university’s perceived failure to address antisemitism has had legal consequences.
Earlier this month, a lawsuit accusing it of ignoring antisemitism was cleared to proceed to discovery, a phase of the case which may unearth damaging revelations about how college officials discussed and crafted policy responses to anti-Jewish hatred before and after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The case, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, centers on several incidents involving Harvard Kennedy School professor Marshall Ganz during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Ganz allegedly refused to accept a group project submitted by Israeli students for his course, titled “Organizing: People, Power, Change,” because they described Israel as a “liberal Jewish democracy.” He castigated the students over their premise, the Brandeis Center says, accusing them of “white supremacy” and denying them the chance to defend themselves. Later, Ganz allegedly forced the Israeli students to attend “a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity” and the taking of a class photograph in which their classmates and teaching fellows “wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support.”
During an investigation of the incidents, which Harvard delegated to a third party firm, Ganz admitted that he believed “that the students’ description of Israel as a Jewish democracy … was similar to ‘talking about a white supremacist state.’” The firm went on to determine that Ganz “denigrated” the Israeli students and fostered “a hostile learning environment,” conclusions which Harvard accepted but never acted on.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Harvard Chaplains Omit Antisemitism From Statement on Antisemitic Incident first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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