Synagogues are shortening the typically long Yom Kippur services to head off Zoom fatigue. Find your service here.

Posted on September 27, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Want to attend a US online Yom Kippur service? Here are some options
by JTA
September 27, 2020

The global pandemic has upended traditional High Holiday services this year, closing synagogues or severely limiting attendance for the most-attended services of the year on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. In the United States, it’s also given rise to countless online services, collaborations and innovations that will allow Jews around the world to have diverse, robust holiday experiences online. The options can be overwhelming. But we’ve collected a non-exhaustive list of High Holidays offerings, arranged by the kind of experience you’re seeking. Most of these offerings are free, but a few require a small payment. To prevent unwanted intruders, many require preregistration. READ MORE FOR LINKS TO YOM KIPPUR SERVICES

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“At a time when Jews are supposed to look within and admit fault, too many of us are virtue signaling and delegitimizing our opponents. Can we stop?”

Posted on September 27, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Can we forgive each other?
by Jonathan S. Tobin
September 27, 2020

…The Days of Awe are a moment in time when we should focus on finding the courage and the moral strength to forgive and to apologize. We should remember that none of us are in possession of faultless truth. And we should be able to say we are sorry for offending others, forgiving those who have done the same to us and resolving to conduct ourselves, even on issues we feel the strongest, with more restraint and civility. That doesn’t mean that we should stop voicing our opinions on critical issues. But it should motivate us to recognize that no-holds-barred contemporary political combat is not only coarsening and corrupting our country, but also our souls. READ MORE

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“The PLO era officially began at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993. It officially ended at the White House on Sept. 15, 2020. It is time for Israel, the US and the rest of the world to recognize this truth and act accordingly”

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Time to hold the PLO accountable for its crimes
by Caroline B. Glick
September 25, 2020

Earlier this month, the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government announced that PLO Executive Committee Chairman Saeb Erekat has been hired as a senior fellow for the school’s Future of Diplomacy Project for the 2020-2021 school year. This week, former senior Justice Department official, attorney Neal Sher sent a letter to US Attorney General William Barr and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf asking that Erekat be denied a visa to the United States. Sher noted that Erekat’s long record of supporting terrorism as a senior PLO official includes numerous acts of inciting, facilitating and soliciting terrorism. READ MORE

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“Ginsburg embodied a particular ambivalence in Jewish life that is found in no other faith community”

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
RBG: An American Jewish justice warrior
by Melanie Phillips
September 24, 2020

The obituary in Britain’s Guardian newspaper of the iconic liberal US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died last weekend, provoked outrage among a number of Jews. In the piece, Godfrey Hodgson wrote: “Ruth was brought up in a Conservative Jewish tradition and learned Hebrew as a child, but abandoned her religion because she was not allowed to join a minyan (a group of men) to mourn her mother’s death when she was 17.” He also wrote: [In 1993, President Bill] Clinton was anxious to make the supreme court more diverse, so Ginsburg’s Jewish religion, which she had given up 46 years earlier, may have counted for more than a lifetime of commitment.” READ MORE

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University of Illinois student government conflates #BDS and #BLM

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Jewish Students at University of Illinois Decry Passage of Anti-Israel Divestment Resolution During High Holidays
by Benjamin Kerstein
September 24, 2020

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s student government on Wednesday night voted in favor of a pro-BDS resolution calling for divestment from a number of companies over their alleged involvement in human rights abuses in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Companies mentioned in the resolution — titled “Human Rights Violations in University Investments and Police Forces” — included Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Company, Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar and Elbit Systems. The issue was complicated by the inclusion of language in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, which placed pro-Israel students in the position of appearing to vote against racial justice, something many saw as a deliberate tactic. READ MORE

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Doran: “Trump’s masterstroke came by breaking the hold of the Washington foreign policy establishment on the Middle East peacemaking business”

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
The Emperor’s New Clothes
by Michael Doran
September 23, 2020

…When dealing with the ruthless and unsentimental Middle East, Trump’s obsession with winning is in fact a net positive. Trump may be hated by some, but leadership in the region is not a popularity contest; it is a contest of raw force, whose outcome is very often a matter of life or death. From the lowliest shoeshine boys to the loftiest rulers, Middle Easterners suffer recurring nightmares about the gruesome fate that will befall them when their enemies—political, ethnic, or religious—gain the upper hand through war or revolution and seize control of the state. READ MORE

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Using Google to spread antisemitism

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JTA
A Google search for ‘Jewish baby strollers’ yields anti-Semitic images. An extremist campaign may be to blame
by Ben Sales
September 25, 2020

The Google results are shocking: Do an image search for “Jewish baby strollers” and you’ll see row upon row of portable ovens — an offensive allusion to the Holocaust. Google says it’s looking into the search results and wants to improve them. But according to researchers, the results may not be an accident. It’s possible that they’re the result of a coordinated extremist campaign on a fringe website to yield those specific images. The Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies the way hate speech spreads online, located a series of posts on the 4chan message board, dating back to 2017, that purposefully pair images of ovens on wheels with the term “Jewish baby stroller.” READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Scientists around the world join forces to combat anti-Semitism with artificial intelligence An international team of scientists said Monday it had joined forces to combat the spread of anti-Semitism online with the help of artificial intelligence. The project Decoding Anti-Semitism includes discourse analysts, computational linguists and historians who will develop a “highly complex, AI-driven approach to identifying online anti-Semitism,” the Alfred Landecker Foundation, which supports the project, said in a statement Monday.

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“In this High Holiday season, when we want to make amends with others, Howes’ illuminating book is a valuable guide “to make things right”

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH BOSTON
When Saying “I’m Sorry” Isn’t Enough
by Judy Bolton-Fasman
September 14, 2020

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” said James Baldwin. Clinical psychologist Molly Howes takes Baldwin’s reflection to heart in her excellent and engaging book, “A Good Apology: Four Steps to Make Things Right.” Culled from her decades-long experience as a therapist, Howes presents engaging and clear-eyed narratives of what works and what doesn’t in shaping a sincere apology. Howes has studied the wisdom of successful apologies articulated in world religions, business models and psychotherapy literature. But the mainstay of her research is her patients’ stories, which she conveys with empathy and compassion. Her patients’ situations and observations inform her four-step approach to offering an apology…READ MORE

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The blacks that liberal whites still demonize

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

Uncle Tom

In a collection of intimate interviews with some of America’s most provocative black conservative thinkers, Uncle Tom takes a unique look at being black in America. Featuring media personalities, ministers, civil rights activists, veterans, and a self-employed plumber, the film explores their personal journeys of navigating the world as one of America’s most misunderstood political and cultural groups: The American Black Conservative. This eye-opening film from Director Justin Malone examines self-empowerment, individualism and rejecting the victim narrative. Uncle Tom shows us a different perspective of American History from this often ignored and ridiculed group. Click here to view the film.

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“Instead of cleaning up its act, the education establishment is doubling down”

Posted on September 24, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

CALIFORNIA POLICY CENTER
Cultural Marxism For The Kids
by Larry Sands
September 25, 2020

The results of a survey released last week revealed that two-thirds of 18-39 year-old Americans do not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. One-half of the respondents could not name a single concentration camp. One-fourth said the holocaust was a myth and one-tenth blamed it on the Jews. I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise. It is very much in line with other recent polls which find that just 27 percent of those under the age of 45 nationally can demonstrate a basic understanding of American history. Additionally, 57 percent  of all Americans don’t know we have nine Supreme Court justices…READ MORE

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