Herman Mankiewicz, depicted by Gary Oldman in new David Fincher film, sparred with Nazi propagandists and director Orson Welles, while anti-Semitism was widespread in film industry

JTA
The real story behind ‘Mank,’ the new movie about the Jewish screenwriter who brought us ‘Citizen Kane’
by Gabe Friedman
December 4, 2020

Acclaimed director David Fincher’s highly anticipated film “Mank,” on the Jewish screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz and the story behind his writing of the classic film “Citizen Kane,” hit Netflix on Friday following a short theater-only run. It’s already being considered a front-runner for several Oscar nominations. Beyond “Citizen Kane,” Mankiewicz worked behind the scenes on dozens of famous films from the silent era into the 1950s — among them “The Wizard of Oz” and the comedy “Dinner at Eight” — often without receiving credit. READ MORE

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Pro-Israel Progressive Ritchie Torres on why he’s against #BDS

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“If Eton College sticks to its ejection of one of its finest teachers, progressive rot has truly set in.

NATIONAL REVIEW
England’s Top School Fires Teacher for Thought Crimes
by Cameron Hilditch
December 4, 2020

…Older students at Eton take a class called Perspectives, in which they’re exposed to different takes on a topical issue. Mr. [Will] Knowland showed a video of his own making during this class called “The Patriarchy Paradox.” During the course of the lecture, he argued that men and masculinity have been indispensable to the progress of human civilization and that the two sexes differ at fundamental psychological and biological levels. He then dutifully circulated this to other teachers on the Perspectives programme and received the inevitable anonymous denouncement, which was upheld by the powers that be at the school. Remote students were prevented from accessing the lesson on the school’s website, and [Head Master Simon] Henderson even demanded that it be taken down from Knowland’s private, non-affiliated YouTube channel. After repeatedly refusing to be censored in this way without any due cause being offered up by his employer, he was fired. READ MORE

The YouTube that got Will Knowland fired:

THE COLLEGE FIX UChicago refuses to punish professor protested for criticizing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts Associate Professor Dorian Abbot recently took on the push to hire women and underrepresented minorities rather than select the best candidate for the job, bias against Chinese and Christian students, and other hot-button topics, drawing the ire of protesting students who said the scholar made them feel unsafe.

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“Iran’s State News Agency Claims Top Nuclear Scientist Assassinated by Remote-Controlled Killer Robot”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Jerusalem fears attacks on Israelis visiting UAE following Iran hit
by Staff and Judah Ari Gross
November 29, 2020

Israeli security officials are concerned Iran could attack Israeli tourists visiting the United Arab Emirates in retaliation for the assassination of the man said to be the Islamic Republic’s top military nuclear scientist, which Tehran blames on Israel, according to a television report on Sunday. Multiple top Iranian officials have blamed Israel for the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the alleged mastermind of Iran’s rogue nuclear weapons program, and vowed to avenge his death. Israel has not officially taken responsibility for the assassination, though The New York Times, citing intelligence officials, said Jerusalem was behind the hit. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Seth Frantzman: Fakhrizadeh: Hit squads, car bombs and remote-controlled guns Remote-controlled weapons killed Iranian nuclear scientist, key nuclear program chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, according to Iranian accounts. But, another account has it differently: a handful of assassins did it. Yet a third explanation has is that twelve men came with several vehicles, using one to blow up and block the security convoy that was protecting the high value target.

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Decent people cheer the removal of an evil man. Obama acolytes lament it. Said differently, What part of “Death to America, Death to Israel” don’t you understand?

MELANIE PHILLIPS BLOG
The warped reaction to the Fakhrizadeh assassination
by Melanie Phillips
November 30, 2020

…Iran declared war against the west decades ago, and has committed numerous attacks and sponsored repeated acts of murderous terrorism against America, coalition forces in Iraq, Israel and diaspora Jews. Yet the western establishment, which has perversely refused to defend its interests against such attacks, continues to behave as if Iran is not responsible and that only a western military response would be an act of war.  Progressives say the regime will be contained by reaching out to it in negotiation. Once again, this is an example of the west’s ineffable arrogance in assuming that its own value-system is shared by the rest of the world. To the Iranian regime, attempts to negotiate are a sign of weakness and thus an incentive to further aggression. READ MORE

NEWSWEEK Ilan Berman: Israel Aims To Make Iran’s Nuclear Program a Risky Venture Friday’s killing has another facet, as well: It reflects what amounts to a significant shift in strategy on the part of the Jewish state. For years, speculation has abounded that Israel might ultimately decide to act unilaterally against Iran’s nuclear program, which represents the gravest external threat to its security. The possibility of an Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear sites is still very much on the table today, but it is an option hamstrung by a harsh reality: It is simply not possible to bomb knowledge.

NEW YORK SUN Europe Sends Its Condolences to Iran The EU, in a statement from its High Representative, Josep Borrell, extended condolences to the bomb maker’s family. We don’t dismiss the cruelty of war. Yet the European Union expresses not a syllable of appreciation for the possibility that the attack might yet buy time and safety for Israel (and Europe). Nor did it acknowledge the early warnings from Jerusalem about what Fakhrizadeh was up to.

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Left with virtual membership, congregants are asking why they have to pay their usual full amount of annual dues

FORWARD
In LA, a high-profile merger prompts questions over the future of the synagogue
by Ryan Torok
November 29, 2020

In one of the biggest consolidations of recent years, University Synagogue, a Reform congregation with declining membership in the West Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood, struck a deal this month with Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a historic congregation of 2,000 families and two campuses that has been seeking added space for its early childhood and elementary schools. The merger comes about as synagogues everywhere have been forced to move religious services, class lessons, adult programming and camping activities to Zoom and other online platforms…That has left many synagogues large and small exploring mergers and other strategies to stay in operation. READ MORE

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“Spy chief widely seen behind killing of Iran’s nuclear weapons chief is a trusted Netanyahu loyalist, and his preferred choice to steer Israel through the coming regional chaos”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Why Mossad’s Yossi Cohen, shadow warrior against Iran, is PM’s chosen successor
by Haviv Rettig Gur
December 2, 2020

In August 2019, people close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heard him utter a startling sentence. “There are two people I consider fit to lead Israel — Yossi Cohen and Ron Dermer,” he was quoted by unnamed associates as saying, referring to the head of the Mossad and to Israel’s ambassador to Washington, respectively…First as national security adviser and then as Mossad director, Cohen has played a key role in helping Netanyahu centralize the most sensitive and significant strategic policy questions within the Prime Minister’s Office, cutting competing institutions and power bases, from the defense and foreign ministries to the security cabinet, out of the loop. READ MORE

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Heard from Israeli New Yorker: “Every day I tell my husband, ‘We’re moving to Dubai’”

NEW YORK POST
Surprise exodus of Jewish Americans moving to once-hostile UAE
by Doree Lewak
November 28, 2020

When Elie Abadie was in his Upper East Side home watching the signing of the historic Abraham Accords — the peace treaty between the United Arab Emirates and Israel — on TV in September, he had no idea he’d be living in the UAE some two months later. After all, the UAE had historically been so hostile to Jews that Israelis were once barred from even visiting. But earlier this month he moved with his wife, Estie, to Dubai, where he is now the senior rabbi for the Jewish Council of the Emirates. “I realized this is the place to be,” the Orthodox Abadie, 59, told The Post, looking out from his Dubai penthouse overlooking the Palm Jumeirah, a glitzy artificial island studded with soaring luxe skyscrapers. READ MORE

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Avdija is “putting aside the IDF olive drab” in favor of Washington Wizards red and blue

WASHINGTON POST
Deni Avdija is ‘the greatest talent in Israeli basketball history.’ But is he ready for the NBA?
by Steve Hendrix
November 30, 2020

In the empty arena of this basketball-crazy city, Deni Avdija — swish — is saying goodbye — swish — to his home court. Swish, swish, swish. Three days before flying with his mother and manager to his new life in Washington, the Wizards’ 19-year-old first-round draft pick is bidding farewell to the floor that made him famous by draining one three-pointer after another. Five hundred of them. “Five hundred makes, not tries,” Avdija clarifies Tuesday morning after reeling off 15 perfect splashes in a row. The rare clang of a miscue echoes through silent, 10,000-seat Menora Arena, the seat of Israeli professional basketball and the place where the 6-foot-9 small forward has already played three professional seasons. READ MORE 

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“There’s a good reason the century-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not been solved: it can’t be”

AMERICAN PURPOSE
The Peace Illusion
by Michael Mandelbaum
November 20, 2020

The Biden Administration would be well advised, however, not to resume one particular feature of pre-Trump American foreign policy: the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. For three decades, successive American presidents invested diplomatic capital and their own time in that process. Then-Vice President Biden assisted President Obama in attempting to bring about a settlement of the now century-long conflict through the establishment of a Palestinian state that would exist peacefully next to Israel. The effort failed in the past and is doomed to fail in the future as well, for a central but little-recognized reason: the Palestinians do not want such a state. Their overriding goal is the destruction of Israel and they will enter into no arrangements that require their acceptance of a Jewish state in the Middle East as permanent and legitimate. READ MORE

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