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Tears of Rage
Both the soldier and the Jewish artist who created him died more than 70 years ago, yet they still have the visual power to call to action the necessary military response to the massacre by Hamas terrorists.
Polish immigrant Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) who left Europe in the wake of the Holocaust, was known as a fighting artist. During World War II, he dedicated his portrait of America’s commander-in-chief to Eleanor Roosevelt, signing it “F.D.R.’s soldier in art.” Referencing Szyk’s popularity among US servicemen and the praise in the American press for his political cartoons and vitriolic visual commentary against the Axis of evil, the First Lady wrote in her January 1943 syndicated newspaper column My Day: “In its way [Szyk’s work] fights the war against Hitlerism as truly as any of us who cannot actually be on the fighting fronts today.” Of Szyk, we can also say that his fighting spirit hovers over the people of Israel in its righteous determination to kill Hamas terrorists.
Perhaps the best representation of Szyk’s soldiering on is seen in his once well circulated drawing of 1942, Tears of Rage. It captures the screaming anger of a World War II Jewish soldier, with an American helmet and rifle held high, cradling an elderly Jew with a Nazi dagger in his back. In front of them and below a clutched Torah scroll we witness a baby shot in its head, a dazed grieving mother frozen in time, her dead husband leaning on her back, and tears flowing from the baby’s grandmother’s eyes. Were Szyk alive now, ads showing this image would most certainly appear in today’s New York Times and Washington Post just as they did in 1943, responding instead to the unspeakable slaughter of innocent Jews in Israel by Hamas.
At the time this ad appeared, with text written by Hollywood playwright Ben Hecht (both Szyk and Hecht were an integral part of Peter Bergson’s activist groups for Jewish rescue, including the Committee for a Jewish Army), its full page emphasized “Action—Not Pity.” Szyk’s own caption under the image read “To those of my people who fight for the right to die with their boots on–my pride, my love, my devotion.”
Arthur Szyk. We Will Never Die. Official program journal cover. Madison Square Garden, New York, March 9, 1943
This is the time for full scale action by Israel’s military as well as the time for a moral world to be devoted to it with an unfailing and sustained commitment to its just cause. It is a time for boots on the ground, planes in the air, ships in the sea, and a world sick and tired of terrorism. It is a time to thank Israel for being that one nation that is willing to put its sons and daughters on the “fighting fronts” to rid its nation of terrorism while serving as an example for all nations to elevate their own moral and physical courage against terrorism and evil more forcefully.
Prior to its appearance in the referenced newspapers above, Szyk’s Tears of Rage accompanied a December 7, 1942 ad in the New York Times coinciding with the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor. (It also appeared less than one month after the US State Department announced that 2 million Jews had been murdered by the Nazis in Europe.) This time the soldier with the dead and mourning Jews was featured with a “Proclamation on the Moral Rights of the Stateless and Palestinian Jews” (that is, the displaced Jews of Europe and those Jews living in the land of Israel). The Proclamation called for the formation of a Jewish Army of those Jews (not American or British Jews) to fight alongside the Allies. It called upon the free world to support its moral obligation to allow Jews to defend themselves under their own “flag” and fight on behalf of their brothers and sisters who were being slaughtered. Now the world is called upon again to support the right of Jews to do the same thing. With Jew hatred, antisemitism, and down with Israel chants echoing worldwide today, it is apparent that the Jewish people are not only confronted with the right to defend themselves but challenged to justify their very existence itself.
In 1943, five US cities (New York and Washington, DC among them), held dramatic pageants entitled “We Will Never Die” (again, written by Ben Hecht), calling attention to the mass murder and annihilation faced by European Jews. On the cover of the journal distributed at the gatherings (40,000 people attended the pageant in New York’s Madison Square Garden on March 9th alone), Szyk’s soldier once again engaged those who were enraged with tears, proclaiming “We will never die.” Indeed, Jews are willing to fight with their boots on, and to them—our pride, our love, our devotion.
Irvin Ungar is the curator emeritus of The Arthur Szyk Society. His book, Arthur Szyk: Soldier in Art, was a winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award.
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A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai
Around 200 people gathered for a pro-Israel demonstration at University of Toronto’s downtown campus at King’s College Circle—which was the site of one of Canada’s largest pro-Palestinian encampments during May […]
The post A pro-Israel rally at the University of Toronto was headlined by Columbia University professor Shai Davidai appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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‘Not Welcome’: New Pro-Hamas Campaign Aims to Abolish Hillel Campus Chapters
A statue of George Washington tied with a Palestinian flag and a keffiyeh inside a pro-Hamas encampment is pictured at George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, May 2, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Craig Hudson
The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) is waging a campaign to gut Jewish life in academia, calling for the abolition of Hillel International campus chapters, the largest collegiate organization for Jewish students in the world.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign, titled #DropHillel, said in a manifesto published last week. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
It continued, “Such actions reveal Hillel’s ideological and material investment in Zionism, despite the organization’s facade as being simply a ‘Jewish cultural space.’”
DropHillel claims to be “Jewish-led,” although only a small minority of Jews oppose Zionism, and the group has been linked to and promoted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters.
Hillel International has provided Jewish students a home away from home during the academic year. However, NSJP says it wants to “weaken” it and “dismantle oppression.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
“Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology advocating for the creation and sustenance of an ethnostate through the expulsion and annihilation of native people,” the group told the paper. “Therefore, any group that advocates for a supremacist ideology — be it the KKK, the Proud Boys, Hillel, or Heels for Israel — should not be welcome on campus.”
The #DropHillel campaign came amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published last month by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Revealing a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena, the report — titled “Anti-Israel Activism on US Campuses, 2023-2024” — painted a bleak picture of America’s higher education system poisoned by political extremism and hate.
“As the year progressed, Jewish students and Jewish groups on campus came under unrelenting scrutiny for any association, actual or perceived, with Israel or Zionism,” the report said. “This often led to the harassment of Jewish members of campus communities and vandalism of Jewish institutions. In some cases, it led to assault. These developments were underpinned by a steady stream of rhetoric from anti-Israel activists expressing explicit support for US-designated terrorists organizations, such as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and others.”
The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38, respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza
Former US President Donald Trump is seen at a campaign event in South Carolina. Photo: Reuters/Sam Wolfe
The “Muslims for Trump” organization has officially launched initiatives to help elect Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to the White House, arguing that he would be more likely to end the war in Gaza than Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
In a statement released on Monday, the group said it will focus on recruiting Muslim voters in key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina. The organization both praised Trump for his supposed “peace-focused” approach to ending the war in Gaza and condemned Harris for helping facilitate a so-called “genocide.”
“After meeting with President Trump, it was clear to me he is the right leader for Muslims to get behind,” Rabiul Chowdhury, co-founder of Muslims for Trump and former co-chair of the “Abandon Harris Movement,” said in a statement.
Chowdhury added that during his discussions with Trump, the former president vowed to “ending the escalation of wars and bringing peace to war-torn regions.” In contrast to Trump’s promise to stop the “bloodshed” in Gaza, he claimed, Harris has “recklessly pushed us toward World War III.”
Chowdhury, a self-described “peace advocate,” urged the Muslim community not to fall victim to supposed “misinformation” campaigns by the media and Democrats that paint the former president as hostile to immigrants. He claimed that the former president’s focus is on “ending war, not dividing families through false immigration claims.”
Samra Luqman, chair of the Michigan chapter of Muslims for Trump, underscored the need to punish the Biden administration for what he described as supporting a “genocide” in Gaza.
“The goal of this election is to hold the Biden administration accountable for a genocide. No amount of fear mongering or scare tactics will persuade my community into forgiving the mutilation, live-burning, and genocide of over 200,000 people,” he said.
According to data produced by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, roughly 40,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began last October. Israel has said that its forces have killed about 20,000 Hamas terrorists during its military campaign.
Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.
On the organization Muslims for Trump’s official website, it claims that the Abraham Accords, a series of historic, Trump administration-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and several countries in the Arab world, helped stabilize the Middle East. It also says that had Trump not lost the 2020 presidential race, the so-called “genocide” could have been prevented.
“Under Trump’s leadership, the Abraham Accords were brokered, fostering peaceful relations between Israel and several Arab countries. Supporters might argue that Trump’s diplomacy prioritized peace and stability in the Middle East, reducing the likelihood of large-scale conflicts like genocide,” the group wrote.
Over the course of his campaign, Trump has repeatedly touted his support for the Jewish state during his singular term in office. Trump has boasted about his administration’s work in fostering the Abraham Accords, promising to resume efforts to strengthen them if he were to win November’s US presidential election.
Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under Trump crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.
Trump also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria, and also moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing the city as the Jewish state’s capital.
Despite Harris’s repeated efforts to woo Muslim voters, polling data indicates that the demographic has made a dramatic swing away from the Democratic Party. Polling data from the Arab American Institute reveals that Trump slightly edges Harris among Muslim voters by a margin of 42 to 41 percent. A report from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shows that Green Party candidate Jill Stein leads Harris and Trump with Muslim voters in the key swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona.
The post ‘Muslim for Trump’ Launches Initiatives in Key Battleground States, Says Candidate Will Bring ‘Peace’ to Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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