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Want to Talk to Your Friends About Jew Hatred? Read This Book
Noa Tishby. Photo: Courtesy
Considering the surge of Jew hatred in America today, two questions challenge the Jewish community: how did we get here, and where do we go next?
No single answer suffices, but a recently published book — Uncomfortable Conversations with a Jew by Noa Tishby and Emmanuel Acho — does an admirable job answering both questions. Their book is a chronicle of conversations between the two friends, one a white Jew, Noa, and the other a Black Christian, Emmanuel. In their dialogues, they explore the origins of the current surge of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic sentiments in America today.
Noa explains that for millennia, the world shunned or exiled Jews wherever they landed, which forced them to adapt to diverse environments — physically, culturally, and spiritually. That’s how different Jewish ethnic communities evolved.
Although Jews are ethnically diverse, their detractors claim they gain an advantage because of their “whiteness.”
But Noa points out that this supposed whiteness has not protected them from antisemitic attacks in the past or in the present. Jews are a meager two percent of the American population, yet according to the FBI they are victims of more than 60 percent of all religion-based crimes.
Right-wing extremists do not consider Jews white; left-wing extremists consider Jews as privileged and white. The truth is Jews come in all colors and hues. There are white Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, and there are Jews of color from a variety of countries: Sephardic Jews from Spain, Beta Jews from Ethiopia, Cochin Jews from India, Kaifeng Jews from China, and Mizrachi Jews from the Levant and North Africa. Neither color nor DNA is a litmus test for Jewishness.
Noa deftly deflates the all-too-common canards about Jews: they are money hoarders, powerful, disloyal, cheats, bent on world domination, or greedy, dirty, evil, and race polluters.
She explains that when the dominant society holds those mistaken beliefs, regrettably it filters down to the targeted minority who begin to believe those falsehoods, and that leads to self-hatred. Although Jews have been champions for minority causes and supporters of the oppressed groups for decades, there is an absence of reciprocal support for Jews. In fact, the same groups that received help from Jewish allies have become antagonistic to the only Jewish State in the world, as well as to those who support her.
Noa and Emmanuel agree that the recent outrageous and disingenuous responses of university presidents, when asked if students and faculty calling for the genocide of the Jews is hate-speech, speaks volumes about their lack of moral clarity. The same lack of ethical values applies to the morally confused students and professors who justify and support the atrocities Hamas committed on Oct 7, while endorsing the terrorists’ call for the eradication of Israel.
Emmanuel was most curious to learn about the term Zionist, because it seemed to him to be the root of the tension between Jews and Palestinian Arabs.
Noa gave this succinct definition: “Zionism is the Jewish people’s right to have self-governance on parts of their ancestral land.” She added, “That’s it. It’s Israel’s right to exist.” And “anti-Zionism is the rejection of Jewish nationhood,” and that is a hallmark of antisemitism.
Emmanuel countered Noa’s explanation by saying that the Black community draws parallels between what they believe Jews did to the Palestinians, and what Americans did to Native Americans. Noa said that is not analogous, because indisputable archaeological evidence shows that the Land of Israel dates to antiquity and “the Jewish people are indigenous to the land.” In short, the Jewish people reclaimed their ancestral land.
On the other hand, when the first Europeans landed on the shores of America, they found Native Americans, but not a trace of English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French artifacts, language, or culture.
Noa asserts that today, the very countries who expelled the Jews over the centuries, are now trying to deny them the land of their ancestors. And the United Nations, which helped found the modern State of Israel, is determined to destroy its own creation.
As for for the effort to boycott Israel, Noa says that it is entirely antisemitic, because it started before the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948. In 1945, the Arab League called for a boycott of all Jewish products, not just Jewish products made in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or Haifa — but all products made by Jews anywhere in the world. The boycott has never been about the land; it has always been about the Jews.
The battle against systemic antisemitism and systemic racism forged a natural bond joining Noa and Emmanuel. Emmanuel quipped, “Your career is what you are paid for, and your calling is what you were made for.”
In that sense Noa and Emmanuel “were made” to co-author this book, which is not for the faint of heart. But it delves into issues that polite company prefers to ignore, because it is easier to ignore this hatred of Jews than face the truth of the situation.
Since retiring from IBM Steve Wenick has served as a freelance book reviewer for HarperCollins Publishing and Simon & Schuster. His reviews and articles have appeared in The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, The Algemeiner, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Jewish Voice of Southern New Jersey. Steve and his wife are residents of Voorhees, New Jersey.
The post Want to Talk to Your Friends About Jew Hatred? Read This Book first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Lawmaker Blasts UN Agency for Teaching Children to ‘Hate Jews’
US Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) speaking at a hearing of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Aviation at the US Capitol. Photo: Reuters Connect
US Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, blasted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) for teaching Palestinian children to “hate Jews,” calling on his fellow lawmakers to support a bill which would claw back funds from the controversial relief organization.
“This week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we marked up a bill mandating that the State Department do everything that it can to recoup the millions of dollars, your dollars, that were sent to UNRWA before Oct. 7,” Mast said in a video uploaded to X/Twitter on Sunday. “This was a bill that I put forward, and we’ve been working on it for a number of months. Now, everybody knows how terrible UNRWA is, and that’s why my bill is bipartisan.”
In May, Mast and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) unveiled a bipartisan bill to rescind all remaining federal funding from UNRWA, citing the agency’s ties to “Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihadists” and condemning the relief organization as an “incubator for Palestinian terrorists.” The bill would direct the Secretary of State to revoke funding that has not yet been utilized by the agency.
The bill was ultimately tabled by the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a vote of 24 to 22 on July 11, which spilt along party lines.
Mast torched Democratic lawmakers for refusing to support legislation which would defund an organization which, Mast argues, promotes antisemitism and terrorism.
I am proud to announce that my bill clawing back misused funds to UNRWA has passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The notion that UNRWA serves American interests is a joke. Let’s get this across the finish line. pic.twitter.com/xnwJopFni6
— Rep. Brian Mast (@RepBrianMast) July 15, 2024
“[D]espite UNRWA’s crimes being made public, there are still some House Democrats who would prefer to take a page out of Joe Biden’s book and disassociate from reality,” Mast said.
The lawmaker also slammed Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-MA) for her prior comments which defended UNRWA as “doing God’s work.” Mast further repudiated UNRWA as an agency which indoctrinates Palestinian children to “hate Jews.”
“Is it God’s work to take innocent people hostage or launch rockets at school buses or cities or cafes or malls or any innocent people they can find? I don’t think that’s the case,” Mast said.
UNRWA has faced significant controversy due to allegations of its connections with Hamas, the terrorist group which launched the ongoing war in Gaza by slaughtering roughly 1200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. UNRWA facilities and resources have been exploited by Hamas for various purposes, including the storage of weapons and the use of schools as launch sites for attacks against Israel.
Over 100 Israeli victims of Oct. 7 filed lawsuits against UNRWA in June for allegedly providing a “safe haven” for Hamas and “aiding and abetting” the terrorist group. Roughly 10 percent of UNRWA employees are tied to terrorist groups such as Hamas or the Islamic Jihad, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Members of a 3,000 Telegram group were found to have celebrated the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to UN Watch. Evidence suggests that at least 30 UNRWA employees actively participated in Oct. 7, slaughtering civilians, taking hostages, and ransacking Israeli communities.
The House voted in March to defund UNRWA as part of a $1.2 trillion spending package to prevent a government shutdown.
The post US Lawmaker Blasts UN Agency for Teaching Children to ‘Hate Jews’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordanian Prince Reiterates Call to Ban Israel From FIFA Tournaments Worldwide Due to Hamas War
Prince Ali bin Al Hussein (center) is pictured in the stands before a match at the Ahmed bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan, Qatar, on February 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, president of the Jordanian Football Association and half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, reaffirms his stance on Sunday that the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) should ban Israel from all international matches due to its military actions during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“The continuation of the status quo without taking decisive steps reinforces double standards and reflects an unfair image of the sports world,” he said on Sunday, according to the Middle East Monitor. He also called on all soccer fans around the world to stand united and pressure FIFA to expel Israel.
In February, the Jordanian prince spearheaded a letter by the 12-member West Asian Football Federations that also called on FIFA to expel Israel from participating in global soccer matches. The letter urged FIFA to take a “decisive stand against the atrocities committed in Palestine and the war crimes in Gaza, by condemning the killing of innocent civilians including players, coaches, referees, and officials, the destruction of the football infrastructure, and taking a united front in isolating the Israeli Football Association from all football-related activities until these acts of aggression cease.”
In March, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) formally submitted a proposal to FIFA that called for Israel’s removal from the governing body in response to “grave human rights and humanitarian law violations committed by Israel.” The motion also accused the Israel Football Association (IFA) of “providing moral, economic, and practical support to the occupation” of Palestinian territories. The motion garnered widespread support, including from federations representing Algeria, Qatar, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
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ADL Says Iran’s HispanTV Spreads Antisemitism and ‘Anti-Jewish Hate’ to Spanish-Speaking Audiences Worldwide
Iranians attend an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a report on Monday that accused Iran’s Spanish-language media outlet HispanTV of promoting antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and anti-Israel bias and incitement to its audience of nearly 600 million Spanish speakers around the world.
Established in 2011, HispanTV is financed and run by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting corporation (IRIB), whose head is appointed directly by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The media outlet reaches audiences through satellite, cable, live streaming and social media. It is one of the two top channels IRIB uses to promote “anti-Jewish hate globally,” with the other being the English-language PressTV, according to the ADL.
In its report, the Jewish group gives detailed examples of how HispanTV propagates antisemitic conspiracy theories and misinformation, including Holocaust distortion, delegitimizing Zionism and comparing it to Nazism, spreading antisemitic tropes about Jews and Jewish power, glorification of terrorism, justification for the destruction of Israel, and lies and myths related to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.
In 2013, HispanTV published an article titled “Why Jews Dominate Hollywood,” supporting the antisemitic conspiracy theory about Jewish control over the entertainment industry. Another article from 2015 was titled “Zionism, the Real Ally of Hitler” and a separate article from 2020 was titled, “The New Coronavirus is the Result of a Zionist Plot.”
Following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, HispanTV accused Western media of unfairly portraying Israel as victims and demonizing Iran-backed Hamas terrorists responsible for the attack, in which 1,200 were murdered and about 240 more were taken hostage. The media outlet also broadcast news program and published articles that absolved Hamas of responsibility for the attack.
The ADL report detailing HispanTV’s antisemitic content was released on the 30th anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish Federation in Buenos Aires, Argentina, an attack by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah terrorist group, and backed by the Iranian regime, where 85 people were killed and over 300 were injured.
“Alongside physical violence, the Islamic Republic of Iran, as the world’s leading state-sponsor of antisemitism and terrorism, uses cultural centers and media across Latin America to incite hostility against Jewish communities,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, who is currently in Argentina. “The cynical use of media outlets like HispanTV to amplify antisemitic conspiracies and disinformation is reprehensible and unethical. In our report, we outline concrete steps to urge policymakers and corporations to take swift action to prevent HispanTV and other Iranian regime media from spreading hate through these platforms.”
The United States sanctioned the IRIB in 2013 and 2022 for spreading disinformation and carrying out human rights violations, including the broadcasting of forced confessions by dissidents and foreign hostages. In 2019, Google blocked 39 YouTube channels connected to Iran, including Hispan TV, for “violating Google’s policies.”
The ADL stated in its report that “unless there is a concerted effort by governments, international organizations, corporations, and other relevant state and non-state actors, HispanTV will continue to spew hateful conspiracies that will radicalize the next generation of antisemites in Latin America and beyond.”
The post ADL Says Iran’s HispanTV Spreads Antisemitism and ‘Anti-Jewish Hate’ to Spanish-Speaking Audiences Worldwide first appeared on Algemeiner.com.