Nearly 350 filmmakers, actors, and other members of the film industry signed an open letter on Wednesday, the same day as the opening of the Venice Film Festival, criticizing the prestigious festival for featuring two Israeli films.

At the center of the controversy is Dani Rosenberg’s Hebrew-language film “Al Klavim Veanashim” (“Of Dogs and Men”), which is about the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, and “Why War” by director and screenwriter Amos Gitai, which will be making its world premiere on Aug. 31 out of competition. The latter film was inspired by a correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud about avoiding war and “embarks on a search for an explanation of the savagery of wars that inhabit our world,” according to a synopsis provided by the Venice Film Festival.

In the open letter, published by Artists for Palestine Italia, members of the film industry claim “Of Dogs and Men” and “Why War” were “created by Israeli production companies that are complicit in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians.” They claimed it was “unacceptable” for the Venice Film Festival to showcase both films and said they “reject complicity with the Israeli regime of apartheid and oppose the artwashing of its Gaza genocide against Palestinians at the 81st Film Festival in Venice.”

“‘Of Dogs and Men,’ shot in the midst of Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza, whitewashes the genocide,” the letter continued. “Like ‘Of Dogs and Men,’ ‘Why War’ was created by complicit Israeli production companies that contribute to apartheid, occupation, and now genocide through their silence or active participation in artwashing. Palestinian society, including the absolute majority of filmmakers, has called for refusing to screen such productions.”

Among the signatories were a number of Palestinian filmmakers and actors — including two-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, Rosalind Nashashibi, Raed Andoni, and Saleh Bakri — as well as more than 80 Italian film industry figures such as screenwriter and David di Donatello nominee Davide Serino; filmmakers Enrico Parenti and Alessandra Ferrini; and actors Niccolò Senni, Simona Cavallari, Chiara Baschetti, and Paola Michelini. Others who signed the open letter included Tony Award nominee Kathleen Chalfant, César-winning actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, composer Nitin Sawhney, and Israeli filmmakers Oreet Ashery and Eyal Sivan.

The film industry figures also took issue with the Venice Film Festival for staying silent “about Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people.”

“This silence outrages us deeply,” they explained, before urging film festival organizers to take “effective and ethical measures to hold apartheid Israel to account for its crimes and system of colonial oppression against Palestinians.”

“The film festival should not program productions complicit in apartheid crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, regardless who perpetrates them, and should refrain from doing so in the future,” the open letter stated in conclusion. “Artwashing Israel’s genocide in Gaza on the international cultural stage, including film festivals, is profoundly immoral.”

The Venice Film Festival last year hosted the world premiere of “Tatami,” the first feature film co-directed by an Israeli and an Iranian filmmaker, as well as the world premiere of “Letters from Drancy,” a virtual reality film about the life of a Holocaust survivor.

The post Over 300 Filmmakers Condemn Inclusion of Israeli Films in Venice Festival, ‘Artwashing of Gaza Genocide’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

In this week’s Torah portion, we read: “If a fellow Hebrew male or female is sold to you, they will serve you for six years. And in the seventh year, they should go free, but when you set them free, do not let them go empty handed. Provide for them out of your flock … with everything the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord redeemed you, therefore I command you this day” (Deuteronomy 15;12).

Of course, such laws were only relevant in the past. But there are still important lessons to be learned.

A Hebrew “slave” (really an indentured laborer) was someone convicted of a civil crime but unable to pay off the penalty — or someone unable to support his family, who worked in exchange for board and lodging for himself and his family. He or she would work for a maximum of six full years, unless a redeemer bought their freedom before that. Their living conditions, according to the Torah, should be exactly the same standard as their master’s. But if they refused to go free because they were happy in this state of servitude, they would be penalized by having their ears pierced and then they could stay.

In explaining why the ear was pierced, Rashi quotes: “Because the ear heard on Sinai that you should serve Me, not serve my servants.”

The comparison between serving God and serving other human beings makes the point that — ideally — we should not willingly enslave ourselves, even if sometimes it might be necessary. But when this happens, the master or mistress must treat the indentured servant as an equal, and not lord it over them.

Still, as the Torah makes clear, servitude, even if accepted willingly, is dependence — and dependence is not the ideal. Human dignity has an important role in Biblical society — and to avoid this, the Torah commanded that when releasing them, we have to make provisions and ensure they are not thrown back onto the streets, but also enable them to set up their own businesses and to provide for themselves.

One of the great benefits that modern societies provide is welfare. But the trouble with welfare is that it can be abused.

Here is an excerpt from a recent blog by Dr. Emile Woolf,  the best-selling author and expert in economics. It refers specifically to the UK economy, but is equally relevant to all economies battling to balance caring, legitimate welfare, with economic burdens that limit the capacity of welfare to meet crucial needs:

The benefits system, including public sector pensions, has strayed beyond providing a safety net for the most vulnerable, and now costs taxpayers £300 billion p.a. Almost 4m people are receiving out-of-work benefits without even having to look for a job. Perhaps it’s worth adding that, as police and the courts are struggling with the rising number of violent attacks on our streets, we can no longer safely assume that the attacker is a “terrorist”. We increasingly hear instead is that “he is a mental-health patient”. …  So rapid and ubiquitous is the spread of the mental disability syndrome that no section of the community could possibly be immune.

One might also apply this reliance and dependency to the refusal of many in Israel, both secular and Haredi, who prefer to rely on government handouts.

Those who excel in their studies, whether secular or religious, are entitled to help to continue their studies. But a whole generation of many who do not want to or cannot study is another form of dependency that, in my opinion, the Torah would not have approved of.

As the Talmud says, “Many tried full time study and did not succeed. And many tried combining study with earning a living and did succeed.”

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.

The post The Torah Teaches That Welfare Should Be Granted to the Truly Needed — But Never Abused first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

The immediate reaction by journalists covering the Middle East to Hamas’ mass murder, torture, rape, and mutilation of Jews on Oct. 7th is a moral test like few others.

The antisemitic savagery carried out by the terror group’s death squads throughout Israeli communities like Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz, Nir Oz, Ofakim, and Re’im, resulted in the murder of 1,200 people, thousands injured, and approximately 250 taken hostage. As many have noted, the Hamas massacre represented the most deadly attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

As we’ve demonstrated, some media outlets, journalists, and columnists — after a period of weeks — decided to shift from the uncomfortable and ideologically disorienting reality of Palestinian antisemitism and Hamas barbarism to one where the Jewish State, in its military response to the attack, became the perpetrators of “crimes against humanity,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “genocide.”

Some didn’t wait weeks, or even days.

For instance, on the evening of Oct. 7th, while Hamas butchers were still in Israeli territory, The Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent Bethan McKernan tweeted that “Until this morning, tearing down the walls that have hemmed in Gaza’s 2.3m people for 16 years was unthinkable. Whatever else happens now, this is a clear sign that the siege, and 56-year-old occupation, are not sustainable projects.“ [emphasis added]

That same night, she penned her first Guardian analysis on the massacre, focusing on the current threat to Palestinian civilians in the aftermath of Hamas’ offensive.

But, nothing much at the Guardian shocks us; it has long been a purveyor of the most unhinged anti-Zionist propaganda and, more than occasionally, antisemitic tropes.

The London-based Financial Times (FT), on the other hand, is a far more respected global outlet, one that focuses on business and economic current affairs, and fancies itself as being recognized internationally for its “authority, integrity and accuracy.” So, its Oct. 7th coverage is far more revealing, offering a glimpse into a broader media failure we’ve documented since that dark Shabbat day.

On Oct. 8th, the outlet published an official editorial on the previous day’s massacre. Though the Palestinian violence was still unfolding, and Israel hadn’t yet begun a serious military response, editors opted for cliches and platitudes, such as warning Jerusalem that “violence begets violence” — over moral clarity and serious analysis.

The piece also repeated the mantra that “the region can only secure peace if the decades-old Palestinian demand for a viable state is addressed with serious intent.” In addition to ignoring the actual consequences of Israel’s 2005 Gaza withdrawal, their suggestion that the group’s bloodthirsty pogromists would somehow be appeased by the quotidian demands of attending to the social and economic requirements of statehood beggars belief.

On Oct. 10th, FT editors published a list of suggested reading for understanding the Oct. 7th massacre in particular, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more broadly — a list that included books by anti-Zionist propagandists like Rashid Khalidi, Nathan Thrall, and Joe Sacco.

The Financial Times’ US editor, Edward Luce, in an op-ed (“Biden, Netanyahu and America’s choice,” Oct. 11), seemingly absolved Palestinian terrorists of responsibility for the massacre, writing that “Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel has starved non-violent Palestinian alternatives,” and that the violence is the result of Israeli leaders “depriv[ing] Palestinians of hope for the future and peaceful outlets to express their frustrations.”

FT contributor Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyptian writer and political commentator, literally justified Hamas’s massacre in an Oct. 7th retweet, before publishing an op-ed at the outlet a couple of weeks later, accusing the Jewish State of treacherously using the attacks as pretext to carry out their long desired wish to empty Gaza entirely of their population.

Here’s her retweet:

Kim Ghattas, a distinguished fellow at Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics, is another FT contributor who effectively gave the pogromists a moral pass, tweeting this on Oct. 7th:

The contributor, in addition to falsely claiming that Gaza was under “occupation,” was clearly more morally outraged by Israel’s (potential) “wrath” than with the medieval savagery meted out to men, women, and children by Hamas, in a massacre she described as an “operation” and “incursion.”

Ghattas also wrote what was victim blaming in a FT op-ed three days later, arguing that, at its core, “the current conflict is about the longest occupation in modern history, one that leaves the Palestinians dispossessed.”

No, it’s about the lethal antisemitism of a movement whose objective is the annihilation of the Jewish State — and one that still enjoys a disturbing amount of support from within the Palestinian population. The FT’s early coverage of Oct. 7th is another illustration of the moral corruption within too many Western media institutions, particularly in their insistence on framing the pathologies of anti-Western extremists as legitimate grievances.

Adam Levick serves as co-editor of CAMERA UK – an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.

The post ‘The Financial Times’ and the Hamas Massacre Test first appeared on Algemeiner.com.