Bari Weiss to American Jews: Our holiday from history is ending.

Posted on March 3, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
What It Means to Choose Freedom
Bari Weiss
February 29, 2024

…So let me not leave this stage tonight before saying this again, and underscoring it: we are at a hinge moment in history. Our world is changing.  The world many of us were born into—the world we thought we would spend our lives inside—that world is over. There is no going back. And the things we took for granted—that America would remain exceptional (not just for us but in the world); that Americans would understand this as a place and an idea worth fighting for—those are no longer certainties.  Nor is the certainty of the free world itself, which is burning at its outer edges.  All of it—the ideals and the architecture that have made the past 75 years of Jewish life the greatest in the history of the world—are up for grabs. Ask the people of southern Israel who saw, on the morning of October 7, how brittle the fence is that separates civilization from barbarism.  READ MORE

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For his outrageous conduct, the Brazilian president has been declared persona non grata in Israel

Posted on March 1, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

THE HILL
Brazil’s Lula, a Putin apologist, launches a shameful crusade against Israel
Arturo McFields
March 1, 2024

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is on an unprecedented and shameful crusade against Israel. In less than a week he has issued a strong series of critiques, arguing that Israel’s right to self-defense is actually an act of genocide against Palestine. Far from honoring the message of the Brazilian flag (“Order and Progress”), Lula has returned to power, for the third time, with a retrograde and radical political vision. His alignment with Russia, Palestine, Venezuela and Cuba goes beyond ideology and borders on a defense of international crime. During his recent tour across Africa, Brazil’s head of state took the opportunity to compare Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza with the Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews, an aberrant and malicious analogy. READ MORE

JNS Colombian president who compares Israel to Nazis ends purchase of arms from Jewish state “This is called genocide and is reminiscent of the Holocaust even if the world powers do not like to recognize it,” Gustavo Petro said of dozens of deaths during aid delivery in Gaza.

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Matti Friedman: In a deserted border town, I listened to the reigning genius of Israeli pop blast his songs toward Gaza

Posted on March 1, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FREE PRESS
The Song of the Israel-Hamas War
Matti Friedman
March 7, 2024

By the time the singer-songwriter Shlomi Shaban showed up at the border, the road crew had already set up two towers of speakers facing Gaza. The parents of one of the hostages seized by Hamas in the October 7 attack, a young musician named Alon Ohel, had the idea that their son would hear the songs and draw strength to hold on. They invited three of his favorite singers, one of them Shaban, to play here, at one of the deserted communities along the border, and of course he came. Performing for people engulfed by the current tragedy, like soldiers and evacuees, is what Israeli artists do now. When I asked one of the soundmen what volume level we’d get from the giant speakers, he said it would be “motherfucker.” Artillery thumps were audible across the border a mile away. A pillar of smoke rose from one of the ravaged Palestinian towns. READ MORE

 

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Many point to DEI (Diversity Equity Inclusion) ideology contributing to antisemitism surge and Florida is the first state to do something about it

Posted on March 1, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

WALL STREET JOURNAL
No More DEI at the University of Florida
Editorial Board
March 1, 2024

The University of Florida said it is dismissing all DEI staff, closing its DEI office and halting DEI contracts with outside vendors. The school also announced the laid-off staff would get 12 weeks of severance, and that the $5 million saved from the cost of DEI would go to a “faculty recruitment fund.” That’s a wrap, folks…It’s encouraging to see a major university get back to its core mission of educating young people in math, physics, engineering, literature and the arts. A special cheer for the end of diversity contractors, the recently growing army of consultants-for-hire who have created an industry instructing universities and companies in the politicized language of identity politics, racial affinity groups, and how to impose hiring quotas without calling them quotas.READ MORE

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Harvard economist Roland Fryer canceled, threatened for not adhering to “the narrative” that cops are racist

Posted on March 1, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY CALLER
‘All Hell Broke Lose’: Harvard Economist Needed ‘Armed Guard’ After Study Found No Racial Bias In Police Shootings
Katelynn Richardson
February 17, 2024

Harvard economics Professor Roland Fryer needed armed security with him to go out in public after he published a study finding no evidence of racial bias in officer-involved shootings, he said in an interview with The Free Press founder Bari Weiss. Fryer, a top economist who became the youngest tenured black professor in Harvard’s history at just 30 years old, published a study in 2016 showing there was “no racial differences in officer involved-shootings.” After he published the study, “all hell broke loose,” Fryer told Weiss, noting people “lose their mind when they don’t like the result.” READ MORE

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Defense minister says ultra-Orthodox must share military burden; announcement welcomed by Gantz, met by vague Haredi threats that issue could bring down the government

Posted on February 28, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Gallant says no Haredi draft bill without centrist support, risking coalition crisis
Emanuel Fabian and Jeremy Sharon
February 28, 2024

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called for an end to military draft exemptions for members of the ultra-Orthodox community Wednesday, and said he would only back legislation settling the matter if it is endorsed by centrist ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot. His position, along with growing pressure on the government to reach a resolution on the long-deferred political hot potato, could set up a do-or-die clash with Haredi parties key to the survival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. Urging lawmakers to hash out legislation to address a situation in which most ultra-Orthodox men can skip mandatory service in favor of religious studies, Gallant said manpower strains on the army amid fighting in Gaza and on the northern border required the contribution of all sectors of society. READ MORE

JNS Could the haredi draft issue bring down the government? Gallant drops a bombshell by announcing he will back an ultra-Orthodox service law only if all parts of the coalition agree.

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The Book Stall in Winnetka said it canceled Highland Park native Brett Gelman’s March 20 book signing because they didn’t think they “could guarantee the comfort and security” of attendees.

Posted on February 27, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

PATCH WINNETKA-GLENCOE
The Book Stall In Winnetka Withdraws From Brett Gelman Event
Jonah Meadows
February 21, 2024

A Winnetka bookstore canceled a planned appearance by actor and first-time author Brett Gelman. Gelman, an outspoken supporter of Israel, blamed antisemitic intimidation for the cancelation of an promotional appearance that had been scheduled for next month to promote his book. The Book Stall withdrew due to safety worries not related to the book, a representative said in a statement. Gelman, a Highland Park native best known for his roles in the Netflix show “Stranger Things” and the BBC series “Fleabag,” had booked a four-city tour next month to promote his first book, “The Terrifying Realm of the Possible: Nearly True Stories.”…After learning of the cancelations, Gelman told the New York Post he believed it was due to his vocal support for Israel and the fact that he is Jewish, describing it as “a completely antisemitic act.” READ MORE

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“In antisemitic discourse, Jews are always made to exemplify what a given group of people considers to be the worst feature of the social order in which they live”

Posted on February 26, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TIME MAG
The New Antisemitism
Noah Feldman
February 27, 2024

…It can be hard to think clearly and reason calmly about antisemitism. For 15 million Jews around the world, its resilience engenders fear, pain, sadness, frustration, and intergenerational trauma going back to the Holocaust and beyond. The superficial sense of security that many Jews feel on a daily basis in the contemporary world turns out to be paper-thin. Jews know enough of their own familial stories to realize that in historical terms, such moments of safety have often been fleeting, followed by renewed persecution. Sitting in my office in leafy Cambridge, Mass., a proud citizen of the freest country in the world, in which Jews have been safer than in any other country in history, I am not free of emotion on the topic. Nor could I be. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Alan Baker: Antisemitism must be criminalized before it’s too late Given the large-scale resurgence of international antisemitism today, it is now essential to universally criminalize antisemitism. This must be done despite anticipated negative reactions by Muslim groups and despite the apathetic and misplaced sense of political correctness that is most prevalent in Europe and North America. Now is the time to advance this before it is too late. History will not give us another chance.

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“The fact that so many Hamas members were switching to Israeli SIM cards could have been strong evidence of a potential invasion”

Posted on February 26, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
IDF intel. saw Hamas using hundreds of Israeli SIM cards in Gaza before Oct. 7
Yonah Jeremy Bob
February 26, 2024

Dozens to hundreds of Hamas members activated Israeli SIM cards in the early morning hours of October 7, just before the massacre began, Israeli censorship cleared for publication on Monday – four months later. IDF intelligence and the Shin Bet noted the activity in real time. This could have very well been an indication of a potential invasion. Despite the evidence however, the overall approach at the time was that Hamas would not dare try invading, because Israel’s technology would give prior warning, and any invaders would be killed by overwhelming Israeli air power and reinforcement forces, which would arrive in time to stop an invasion, and also because an Israeli counterattack would be devastating. READ MORE

POLITICO Our warnings on Hamas were ignored, Israel’s women border troops say Testimony from members of mainly female look-out units adds fuel to accusations that Netanyahu badly misread the dangers from Gaza.

JERUSALEM POST IDF official warned of fatal intel. failures right before Oct. 7 massacre IDF intelligence unit commander’s Yom Kippur message on maintaining military readiness, two weeks before the country’s largest intelligence failure on October 7, is haunting in retrospect.

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Overwhelming Israeli opposition to Biden plan rewarding Palestinian terrorism with a state puts the prime minister’s adversaries in a bind

Posted on February 25, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET
U.S. Scheming for a Palestinian State Unwittingly Strengthens Netanyahu
Gadi Taub
February 21, 2024

If the news that the U.S. is going to recognize a Palestinian state that doesn’t exist was intended to break up Prime Minister Netanyahu’s wartime coalition, it’s unlikely to work. Contrary to what the Biden administration assumes, the obstacle to the “two-state solution” is Israel’s electorate, not its prime minister. The more the administration tries to ram this misguided plan down the throat of traumatized Israelis who are in no mood to compromise their security, the more the country’s prime minister will recover political support.The calculation here is not a difficult one to make: Netanyahu’s coalition is united in the belief that promising the Palestinians a state in the middle of a war for national survival would be a declaration by Israel’s government that murdering, raping, and kidnapping Israelis is the way for Palestinians to achieve their national ambitions. READ MORE

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