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We Should Fight the Hatred and Envy of Israel By Recommitting Ourselves to Supporting It
Some 550 new immigrants from the Bnei Menashe community visited the Western Wall for the first time on March 9, 2022. Photo: Yehoshua Halevi/Courtesy of Shavei Israel.
There is a moral decay that has damaged the fabric of American society. We can see its effects on the newly minted, indoctrinated university elite, who perceive the one Jewish state in the world as the sole source of all the problems in the Middle East. Despite Hamas’ massacre on October 7, and the multiple wars of annihilation launched by the Arab world against Israel, the same privileged elites view Israel’s seven million Jews as the oppressor, and Islam’s 1.9 billion adherents as the oppressed.
Interestingly, the hypocritical well-funded and organized “moral mob” never calls for the release of the hostages, including women and children, nor do they demand that Hamas surrender. Cowardly university administrators routinely cow-tow to faculty, students, and a horde of outside agitators, all of whom deny Hamas committed atrocities on Oct. 7, despite videos proudly displayed by the terrorists. In the interest of saving lives, the Biden administration has called on Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire, but is not saying it won’t accept a situation where Hamas remains in power after the war.
According to psychological studies, the strongest motivating forces of human behavior are fear, love, and envy. Of the three, the only negative trait is envy. Thousands of years ago, our sages recognized the destructive nature of envy. The Torah addresses that destructive human attribute and offers a prescription of how to mediate envy’s damaging effects on society. The Tenth Commandment says, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The campus mobs chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” are the pawns of the envious, those individuals and societies that have replaced their innate abilities to create and build what Israel has, with envy. They begrudge the accomplishments of Israel and the Jewish people. When Abraham heeded G-d’s directive: “go yourself from your land, from your birthplace, and the house of your father, to the land that I will show you,” it was a call for Abraham to reject the prevailing practices of his contemporaries. It was an answer to Richard Landes’ question about Jews in his book, Can the Whole World Be Wrong? Abraham left his hometown, Ur Kasdim, thus cutting ties with his country, his city, his neighbors, and family, to seek a better way of life.
Which brings me back to Israel. Israel’s absorption of refugees from Russia, Europe, Africa, and Arab lands hostile to Jews, is in stark contrast to Arab states that refuse Palestinians entry and citizenship in their states (even the many refugees that did not leave Israel during the 1948 war). Also, Israel’s success in medicine, science, and agriculture shows that inquisitions, pogroms, and the atrocities of the Holocaust do not have to decide a people’s fate.
Israel debunks the Marxist oppressor-oppressed narrative because it proves that a people can flourish, despite the deprivations and disadvantages of systemic racism and antisemitism.
Today more than ever, Israel needs Jews as much as Jews need Israel. There is a Hebrew expression, Kibbutz Galiyyut, it refers to the in-gathering of exiles from foreign lands and the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral homeland Israel. Since 1948, it has been the only place that will unequivocally take Jews and where they can truly feel at home.
I close with my opening statement, “there is a moral decay that has damaged the fabric of American society,” and just as G-d directed Abraham to leave Ur Kasdim, a place of bad actors, we too should heed that call and live in Israel, if not in body, then in spirit — by supporting her safety, welfare, and very existence. Understandably, because Israel is not America, she mounts challenges for which Americans are unaccustomed, therefore Israeli life, or one’s personal circumstances, may find that Israel is not for everyone, but it is comforting to know she is there for every one of us.
Steve Wenick, upon retiring from IBM as an IT analyst, took up blogging and writing articles of Jewish interest. His book reviews and articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, and the Jewish Voice of South Jersey. He lives with his wife in Voorhees, New Jersey.
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New York Times Campus ‘Middle-of-the-Road’ on Israel Is Actually Pretty Far Out
The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
“It Can Be Lonely to Have a Middle-of-the Road Opinion on the Middle East,” is the headline over a recent New York Times news article. “Some college students and faculty members are seeking space for nuanced perspectives on the Israel-Hamas war on deeply divided campuses,” a subheadline explains.
What examples does the Times offer up of “nuanced perspectives” and “middle-of-the road” opinion?
One person named in the Times article is a Columbia student named Aharon Dardik. The Times describes him as “a pacifist who spent his teen years with his family in the West Bank but who ultimately refused to serve in the army in Israel. He believes in working with Israelis and Palestinians toward collective liberation and a world not divided by ethnonationalist allegiances.”
A “world not divided by ethnonationalist allegiances” seems like an extremist utopian fantasy, not “nuanced” or “middle of the road.”
The Times doesn’t mention Dardik’s extreme description of Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “plausible genocide,” his praise of extreme anti-Israel congresswoman Ilhan Omar, or his support for gradually phasing out Columbia’s partnership with Tel Aviv University, all of which were mentioned in a piece about him in RealClearPolitics. The Times doesn’t mention that he was court-martialed by the Israel Defense Forces six times and spent about 4 months in an Israeli military prison, as Moment magazine has reported. It doesn’t report Dardik’s expression of support for the Columbia “encampment” and for the takeover of Hamilton Hall by anti-Israel protesters, which are also in the Moment account.
It all doesn’t sound too nuanced or middle of the road to me.
Another person named in the Times article is a professor at Swarthmore College, Sa’ed Atshan. The Times claims the professor “tries to make sure there is complexity in everything he teaches in his Contemporary Israel and Palestine class.” Atshan told NPR that he is a pacifist, and that “it’s difficult to be a pacifist in the U.S. where guns are so pervasive and a world where violence is so pervasive. In a world where the military industrial complex is transnational and has its tentacles everywhere we go.” The Philadelphia Inquirer has described him as a supporter of the movement to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel, and as a proponent of a “one state solution” that would be an end to Israel as a Jewish state.
Another of the Times’s examples is Dov Waxman, a professor at UCLA who “wrote on social media that he supported the International Criminal Court’s request for an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a position he said he took as a supporter of international law.”
These people don’t seem that “middle of the road” or “nuanced” to me. That the Times would describe them as such says more about the Times and its biases than about the realities of the situation on American college campuses.
It’s not even clear how “lonely” these characters are. The Times claims Dardik started a group at Columbia that has “over 100 members.” Waxman recently was invited to speak at a Harvard conference on antisemitism on campus, convened by Derek Penslar, who describes himself as “Head of Harvard’s Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.” There, according to an account in Harvard magazine, Waxman asserted that “the media often exaggerated campus antisemitism.” Atshan gathered support from a petition signed by 750 people, according to the Inquirer. They’re all getting adulatory press coverage from the New York Times describing them, not that accurately, as “middle of the road.”
Maybe they look like “middle of the road” from the vantage point of the New York Times newsroom. Not so, though, from the perspective of the Israeli or American public. The real loners are the Times editors, who persist in pushing a point of view about Israel that is far out of the mainstream. It may boost Times circulation on a few formerly elite college campuses, but it also explains a lot about the newspaper’s fading credibility.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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Republican Jewish Coalition Endorses Mike Johnson to Retain Speaker of the House Role
US House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to members of the media at the Capitol building, April 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) has endorsed Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) to retain his title as speaker of the House of Representatives, citing his strident advocacy for Israel and commitment to combating antisemitism.
“[Rep. Mike Johnson] has shown courageous leadership and moral clarity in taking bold action to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the American Jewish community against unprecedented levels of antisemitism, and resolutely defended the State of Israel as it continues to fight an existential war against Iran and its terrorist proxies,” RJC wrote on X/Twitter.
“Speaker Johnson has more than earned our full-throated and enthusiastic support to lead the Republican Majority in the 119th Congress,” RJC added.
The RJC’s endorsement comes as Johnson has launched a bid to keep his position as speaker of the House of Representatives. Johnson has received immense criticism from the far-right wing of the Republican party after he helped push through a spending bill that failed to raise the federal debt limit. Over the holiday season, Johnson has faced a rebellion from lawmakers within his party and has had to work alongside Democrats to keep the federal government running, calling into question the extent of his support among fellow Republicans.
Over the course of his term as speaker, Johnson has established himself as a stalwart ally of Israel. Last May, the speaker delivered a keynote speech at the US Embassy of Israel, in which he vowed that America will stand with the Jewish state “in their time of greatest need.” Johnson spearheaded an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the US Congress, calling out Democrats for expressing half-hearted support to the Jewish state. He subsequently blasted Vice President Kamala Harris for skipping Netanyahu’s address, suggesting that Harris sought to mollify pro-Palestine activists during her failed presidential campaign.
Johnson also placed the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act”—legislation which would strip tax-exempt status from charities that lend support to terrorism—on the floor of the House of Representatives. The legislation narrowly passed in the House of Representatives in November.
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Ritchie Torres Blasts Columbia Over ‘Intifada’ Student Publication, Calls For ‘Revolution’ Against ‘Far-Left’
US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) speaks during the House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Pool via REUTERS
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) blasted Columbia University over the weekend over their lackadaisical approach to combating antisemitism, excoriating the Ivy League institution for allowing a terrorist-supporting student group to exist on campus.
“Columbia University is so embedded in anti-Israel propaganda that it has a publication entitled, quote, ‘The Columbia Intifada.’ What is needed in our society is a revolution of the responsible against the intifada idiocy of the far-left,” Torres said in a statement on Sunday.
Earlier this month, the prestigious university came under fire after it was revealed that ‘Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine’—a cohort of anti-Israel student activists—distributed a publication titled ‘The Columbia Intifada’ around campus. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) reportedly printed 1,000 copies of the publication, which included articles titled “Zionist Peace Means Palestinian Blood,”and “The Myth of the Two-State Solution.”
When pressed about the publication, Columbia University criticized the students involved and indicated that it would consider administering punishment.
“Using the Columbia name for a publication that glorifies violence and makes individuals in our community feel targeted in any way is a breach of our values,” Columbia said in a statement.
“As we have said repeatedly, discrimination and promoting violence or terror is not acceptable and antithetical to what our community stands for. We are investigating this incident through our applicable offices and policies,” the university continued.
Though the publication is not officially recognized by Columbia University, critics argue that it indicates a thriving anti-Israel sentiment on the prestigious campus.
This is not the first time that Torres has lambasted Columbia over their failure to protect Jewish students on campus. Over the past year, Torres has repeatedly condemned the campus for allowing pro-Palestine students to chant slogans perceived by many to be antisemitic. He has also called Columbia’s anti-Israel professors “pseudo-intellectuals.”
In addition, the congressman has commended New York University (NYU) for expanding its anti-harassment and non-discrimination policies to protect students who support the existence of Israel. NYU’s new hate speech policies state that deploying “code words like ‘Zionist’” do not necessarily shield students from violating the university conduct policies. He has called on Columbia to implement a similar policy.
In the year following the Hamas terrorist group’s slaughter of roughly 1200 people throughout southern Israel, Columbia has become a hotbed of pro-Palestine protests. Immediately following the Oct. 7 massacre, a litany of Columbia student groups issued statements expressing approval of the Hamas attacks and assigning blame exclusively to Israel. A mob of pro-Palestinian protesters held a demonstration in front of the City University of New York Hillel on Tuesday, shouting at Jewish students to get “out of the Middle East” and “go back to Brooklyn.”
Many Columbia campus groups have implemented policies banning self-professed “Zionists” from membership, effectively excluding the majority of Jewish students. Columbia University student Khymani James publicly stated that Zionists “don’t deserve to live.” The Ivy League university has not confirmed if James has been permanently expelled from the campus.
The post Ritchie Torres Blasts Columbia Over ‘Intifada’ Student Publication, Calls For ‘Revolution’ Against ‘Far-Left’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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