A senior rabbi in the US Reform Judaism stream recently issued a rare warning about the potential split in the movement if some of the anti-Israel elements are not countered

Posted on June 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Senior Reform rabbi warns of ‘devastating’ rift because of anti-Israel sentiment
Ariel Kahana
June 6, 2023

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, the senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City, delivered the keynote address at the Re-CHARGING Reform Judaism Conference in late May. The conference convened “thought leaders, Jewish scholars, philanthropists, and committed lay leaders from throughout the US and Canada for an extraordinary opportunity to assess this crossroads moment and offer a call for a bright future.” In part, this was designed to address “the growing distance between North American liberal Jews and Israel, and their fraying connection with the concept of Jewish peoplehood.” READ MORE

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What you must know about The Nakba

Posted on June 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

CAMERA BLOG
The Nakba Narrative is Nonsense
Alex Safian
May 17, 2023

In the years since Israel’s rebirth in 1948 a narrative has taken root, a narrative that portrays well-armed and financed Jewish immigrants overrunning peaceful Palestinian villages, brutally expelling Palestinians from their homes and their country, a narrative summed up in the Arabic word nakba, or catastrophe. In contrast, Israelis view their War of Independence as a battle of the few against the many, a battle forced on a beleaguered Jewish community by Palestinian militias and the invading armies of five Arab states, leading to competing “narratives” about that period which lie at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict. If, as is believed almost uniformly throughout the Arab world, Israel was born in original sin, if the Jews really did ransack placid Palestinian villages, murdering children in front of parents and parents in front of children, and expelling whoever was left, then Palestinian hatred for Israel and Jews would be understandable, as would their fundamental refusal to really make peace with Israel. READ MORE

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My friend filmmaker Gloria Greenfield’s latest film explores “how indoctrination undermines principles of American democracy”

Posted on June 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY WIRE
‘Civilization In The Danger Zone’ Documentary Featuring Daily Wire Author Uncovers How The Left Subverted Western Values
May 2, 2023

Scholars and commentators expose how political and cultural agendas have been subverting Western values and civil liberties in a new documentary released on Monday, titled “Civilization in the Danger Zone. Released under the non-profit corporation Doc Emet Productions, filmmaker Gloria Z. Greenfield said in a news release that the documentary comes amid dedicating her career to studying Judeo-Christian tenets, which she adds lie at the heart of Western civilization. “This documentary exposes, for the first time ever, the ongoing effort by extreme ideologues to undermine the philosophical pillars of the West,” Greenfield said. “From corporations pushing radical gender ideologies to the woke indoctrination of children, we are witnessing a concerted attempt to destabilize the foundations of our society.” READ MORE

Civilization in the Danger Zone is available for streaming at Salem Now

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DEI programs: We’re seeing anti-Jewish stereotypes, biases, defamations, separation of Jews from other groups, and so-called ‘erasive antisemitism,’ which is to say denial of what it means to have a Jewish identity”

Posted on June 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

MILSTEIN FAMILY FOUNDATION
The DEI Threat to Jewish Students
Adam Milstein
May 2023

Today in America, institutions, from universities to governmental agencies and to corporate workplaces, continue to embrace Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and associated ideologies closely linked to critical race theory (CRT). In the process Jews, particularly those on college campuses, find it impossible to live securely and safely within their Jewish identities…In particular, DEI initiatives are weaponized against Jewish students, maliciously portraying them and the Jewish State as vicious oppressors. Kamau Bobb, the head of diversity at Google, wrote that Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war” and an “insensitivity to the suffering [of] others.” Nowhere is his attitude more prevalent than in the DEI offices that now populate colleges and universities across the country. READ MORE

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Chicago sixth grade Jewish day school curriculum “drives a wedge between parents and children” around gender identity

Posted on June 2, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

CHICAGO CONTRARIAN
Gender Education Program Normalizes ‘Adam Identifying as Eve’ at Chicago Jewish Day School
Florian Sohnke
May 10, 2023

Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, an elite Jewish day school on the North Side of Chicago which is accredited by the National Association of Independent Schools, has mandated “controversial ideology” as part of its gender education program for middle schoolers as early as sixth grade, Chicago Contrarian has learned. A long-time “BZ parent” who describes himself as a “committed Jew and devout liberal” told Contrarian that the school’s “Human Growth & Development” program in sixth grade instructs kids that they can choose their own gender alongside “a decidedly non-kosher smorgasbord of sexual identities.”…A birthing parent and former community member, who left the school, jokes she is “waiting for the mandatory dress as Moses in drag Shabbat lunch.” READ MORE

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Israel to redirect aliyah efforts from former Soviet Union countries to Western nations, such as France and the United States

Posted on June 1, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Shifting gears, aliyah ministry to focus efforts on Western Jewry
Ariel Kahana
May 31, 2023

Israel is changing course and refocusing aliyah efforts from former Soviet Union countries to Western nations, such as France and the United States, Israel Hayom has learned. Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer has recommended the redistribution of the budget, which will see funds meant to promote aliyah from the former Soviet bloc slashed almost in half, from 8 to 4.5 million dollars. The newly available funds will be directed to encourage aliyah first and foremost from France. A senior ministry official explained to Israel Hayom that there was simply no need to encourage aliyah from Eastern Europe, as the Ukraine war led to a mass migration to Israel. READ MORE

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CUNY commencement speech demonizes Israel and the crowd cheers

Posted on June 1, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK POST
CUNY Law Dean applauds student’s ‘hate speech’ against Israel, NYPD, and military
Carl Campanile
May 30, 2023

CUNY Law School’s dean came under fire Tuesday when video emerged of her clapping at a graduate’s incendiary May 12 commencement address that the public university’s trustees belatedly labeled “hate speech.” “Everyone was applauding on the stage. The dean applauded,” Jeffey Lax, a professor who is co-founder of the pro-Jewish Students and Faculty for Equality at CUNY, said of Dean Sudha Setty and others…In her address, Mohammed blasted the NYPD “fascist” and accused Israel of indiscriminately murdering Palestinians… The outrage over CUNY Law’s commence activities last year is one of the reasons the City Council had held a hearing about Jewish students’ complaints of anti-Semitism at the university’s 25 campuses. READ MORE

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“Jews have a special interest in stopping Soros due to his funding of groups that “have spread antisemitic lies about the state of Israel,” citing BDS movement and J Street”

Posted on June 1, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY SIGNAL
‘George Soros Is a Destructive Civilizational Force,’ Co-Founder of ‘Jews Against Soros’ Says
Virginia Allen and Samantha Aschieris
June 01, 2023

Two conservative activists on Wednesday launched “Jews Against Soros,” a Jewish coalition against leftist billionaire George Soros. The leaders of the coalition—Josh Hammer, the senior editor-at-large of Newsweek, and Will Scharf, a candidate for attorney general of Missouri—say opposing Soros is not antisemitic. “George Soros is a destructive civilizational force in America, Israel, his native Hungary, and throughout the West more generally,” Hammer told The Daily Signal in a statement. “Far too many elected officials who criticize his dastardly influence, and perhaps especially his sprawling network of “progressive prosecutors,” are dishonestly tarred as “antisemites” for doing so. “Enough. This gaslighting must end, and we hope to help do so,” Hammer said. READ MORE

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A recent essay touting a “one-state” approach to Israel-Palestinian issues is more about eliminating the world’s only Jewish state than offering real solutions to complex regional problems

Posted on May 26, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

WASHINGTON INSTITUTE
The No-State Solution
Robert Satloff
May 31, 2023

Foreign Affairs should be congratulated for publishing this breathtakingly tendentious essay by Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami because it exposes the authors’ pseudo-academic argument as little more than political advocacy. Why is this advocacy and not scholarship? Because in its eagerness to market the catchphrase “one-state reality,” it … avoids inconvenient facts, such as the impressive advance of Arab Israelis within Israeli society in recent decades and the rejection of the “apartheid” label by many leading Arab figures on both sides of the Green Line…Because it disparages the state of Israel’s democracy, which is older than those of about half the countries in the European Union, and makes only passing reference to the remarkable vitality of the country’s civil society, underscored by the huge nationwide protests against proposed judicial reforms that began in early 2023. And because, without a single reference to Hezbollah missiles, Hamas rockets, or a potential Iranian nuclear bomb, it leaves the unsuspecting reader to wonder whether Israel’s neighbors are Andorra, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland. READ MORE

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Jews stand up for Israel at Roger Waters concert, the venue site of 1938 Kristallnacht beatings

Posted on May 26, 2023 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
Jewish protestors raise Israeli flag, sing at Roger Waters Frankfurt concert
May 29, 2023

Jewish protestors interrupted Roger Waters’ concert in Frankfurt on Sunday with Israeli flags and by singing “Am Israel Chai” (the people of Israel live), according to a video posted by Twitter user Jewish Defense Network. The video shows one protestor rushing onto the stage with an Israeli flag as security guards rush to stop him. Meanwhile, in the audience, a group of spectators raise Israeli flags and sing. This protest was carried out after reports that Jewish groups had planned to hold a memorial ceremony at the venue before the performance in protest of Waters’ antisemitism. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Pro-Israel stage protester says Roger Waters’ guards threatened to break his neck Marcel L., who rushed stage with Jewish state’s flag at Frankfurt show, alleges violence by security; singer says act was ‘unnerving,’ as German police probe him for antisemitism

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