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White House blasts Fox News after host Mark Levin questions Wolf Blitzer’s Holocaust bona fides
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For the second time this year, the White House aimed fire at a Fox News Channel host for casting doubt on remembrance of the Holocaust.
On his Westwood One radio show on Wednesday, Fox News host Mark Levin went after CNN personalities for their questions about how careful Israel was in mitigating civilian casualties. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer had pressed Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the U.S. House of Representatives minority leader and a New York Democrat, for his opinion of Israel’s strike on a Hamas target in Jabaliya refugee camp.
“We don’t yet know how many civilians were killed in today’s strike on that refugee camp, but is taking out one Hamas leader or maybe two Hamas leaders who may have been there worth the deaths of so many civilians?” asked Blitzer.
Levin ridiculed the question as betraying ignorance of the Holocaust.
“Wolf Blitzer, as I understand it, his parents weren’t victims in one way or another of the Holocaust,” Levin said. “But certainly his family comes out of that background — but you wouldn’t know it.” Blitzer documented his parents’ survival of Auschwitz in a recent documentary.
Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, took aim at Levin in an unsolicited comment emailed Friday evening to reporters. Unsolicited attacks on the media have been rare for the Biden administration.
“Not only is Fox News aligning with those who fan the flames of hate – Fox is paying their salaries,” said Bates, who in July blasted another Fox Host, Greg Gutfeld, for saying that being “useful” helped Jewish survivors make it through the Holocaust. “Lying to insult the pain that families suffered in the Holocaust has absolutely no place in America.”
Levin also said in his radio show, which is not affiliated with Fox News, “CNN is filled with a lot of self-hating Jews, in my opinion.” The comments followed ones he made the previous week about another CNN host, Jake Tapper, who, like Blitzer, is unabashed in his Jewish expression. He also called Tapper a “self-hating Jew” and “propagandist for the enemy.” (Media Matters, a liberal watchdog, first distributed the audio of Levin’s remarks.)
CNN accused Levin, who is Jewish, of “antisemitic” rhetoric.
“Mark Levin’s comments about Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper were wildly uninformed, inappropriate and shameful,” a spokeswoman said in an email. “Wolf is the child of Holocaust survivors and all four of his grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust, a fact that Wolf has personally reported on through a special documentary, trips to Auschwitz, written reflections, and decades of public speaking on Holocaust education and awareness. Levin’s antisemitic rhetoric is dangerous, offensive and should be universally denounced.”
Asked for a response, a Fox spokeswoman, Irene Briganti emailed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency a transcript of a subsequent Levin broadcast in which he addressed the criticism.
In it, Levin appears to acknowledge that he spread a falsehood about Blitzer and suggests that he did so unintentionally.
“I barely remember saying it,” Levin said. “But obviously, why would I say his parents ‘weren’t, weren’t’ in one way or another victims in the Holocaust? How can that even be logical? Why would I say somebody’s parents were or were not victims of the Holocaust? If they weren’t victims of the Holocaust, why would I say his parents weren’t victims of the Holocaust? Or why would I intentionally say that I didn’t? I didn’t.”
Levin said he’s “since looked it up” and that Blitzer’s parents were, indeed, Holocaust survivors, “a horrible, horrible, thing,” but that if anything that proves his argument that he — Levin — is the better supporter of Israel.
“In that entire clip, Mr. Producer, who’s defending Israel? Me,” Levin said. “In that entire clip who’s defending the IDF, taking out the Islamo-Nazi commander? Is it Wolf Blitzer? No, he’s questioning it. It’s me. I am.”
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The post White House blasts Fox News after host Mark Levin questions Wolf Blitzer’s Holocaust bona fides appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ex-IDF Soldier Becomes First Republican in 50 Years to Win New York State Assembly Seat in Long Island District
A former officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) became the first Republican to win a state assembly seat in northern Hempstead, Long Island in more than 50 years.
Daniel Norber narrowly defeated two-term Democratic incumbent Gina Silitti to capture the 16th District of the New York State Assembly. The district encompasses most of Nassau County, an area which maintains a significant Jewish population.
Norber’s victory came amid a huge surge in support for Republican candidates across the country. US President-elect Donald Trump won the 16th District by over 2,000 votes, assisting Norber, a dual US-Israeli citizen, secure victory in his history-making down-ballot race.
The ex-IDF officer’s win also came in the midst of increasing antisemitism across the country. In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Jewish families in Nassau County have reported being targeted with hate crimes.
In September, a Jewish family in Nassau County alleged that a suspect urinated on their front door and yelled antisemitic slurs. Months earlier in April, county officials denounced antisemitic graffiti which covered the faces of hostages taken captive by Hamas during the Oct. 7 onslaught. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is Jewish, has also accused Civil Service Employees Association Local 830, an 8,000-member local union, of antisemitism for distributing flyers depicting him with devil horns.
Silitti, Norber’s opponent, found herself in hot water with the local Jewish community after one of her staffers bashed Israel on social media.
“She wasn’t sensitive to what was going on. I felt she was out of touch,” Norber, 45, told the New York Post.
Though Norber focused his campaign on domestic issues such as bolstering law enforcement and cutting taxes, he believes that his support for Israel also helped him establish valuable inroads with the local Jewish community. Moreover, his grandparents endured the Holocaust and his mother ran away from communism in the Soviet Union.
Norber was also on the ground in Israel during the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks with his wife and four kids.
“It was the worst atrocity to Jews since the Holocaust. Israel is not the same anymore,” Norber said, according to the Post.
Norber has also touted a series of policies which would likely bolster Jewish safety in Nassau County. In the New York State Assembly, he aims to implement a statewide mask ban with the goal of preventing anonymity during protests — a popular tactic employed by activists during anti-Israel demonstrations to hid their identity. The lawmaker also wants to repeal cashless bail, with the intention of reducing the number of violent criminals on the streets.
The post Ex-IDF Soldier Becomes First Republican in 50 Years to Win New York State Assembly Seat in Long Island District first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Challah for Ceasefire’?: Phoebe Maltz Bovy on watching the political tightrope in women’s media
In the before-times, a personal essay in a women’s magazine about home-baked challah, in which the writer discusses how this ritual connects them to their Jewish roots, would be a […]
The post ‘Challah for Ceasefire’?: Phoebe Maltz Bovy on watching the political tightrope in women’s media appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Palestinian Filmmaker Who Accused Israel of ‘Genocide’ Wins Top Prize at Film Festival With Israel-Set Drama
A Palestinian filmmaker who has accused Israel of “genocide” during the ongoing war in Gaza took home the top prize on Sunday at the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival for a family drama set in Israel that includes Jewish and Arab characters.
Director Scandar Copti won the Golden Alexander for best feature film and a 10,000-euro cash prize for his film “Happy Holidays,” an Arabic- and Hebrew-language film that follows four interconnected characters who “share their unique realities, highlighting the complexities between genders, generations, and cultures.” One character, named Rami, is a Palestinian from Haifa who must deal with his Jewish girlfriend’s sudden decision to change her mind about her planned abortion.
Copti directed and wrote the screenplay for “Happy Holidays.” He also directed the Oscar-nominated 2009 film “Ajami.”
“Happy Holidays” is Copti’s second film, and it premiered in early September in the 2024 Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section, where it won the award for best screenplay. During his virtual acceptance speech at the Venice Film Festival, Copti accused Israel of committing a “genocide” in Gaza, where the Israeli military has been waging a campaign against Hamas terrorists.
“Over the past 11 months, our shared humanity and moral compass has been tested as we witness the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” he said in comments which elicited applause from the audience. He talked about the “painful reality” in Gaza and said “Happy Holidays” examines “how moral narratives can bring us together as communities, but also blind us to the suffering of others. It explores how traditions and indoctrination can distort our values and make injustice seem acceptable.”
“True freedom is interconnected,” he added. “None of us are free until all of us are free, from all sorts of oppression.”
The jury at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival — which included filmmaker and producer Sara Driver, filmmaker Denis Côté, and producer Konstantinos Kontovrakis — applauded Copti’s film “for intricately weaving different narratives and perspectives that fully expose the complexity of national, gender, and class dynamics that can divide societies and for seeing the future in the face of a young woman.”
The post Palestinian Filmmaker Who Accused Israel of ‘Genocide’ Wins Top Prize at Film Festival With Israel-Set Drama first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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