#BDSFail at University of Michigan

Posted on December 16, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

MLIVE
University of Michigan regents won’t divest; oppose Israel sanctions
December 14, 2017

Members of the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents have declined to form a committee to investigate divesting the university’s endowment from certain companies alleged to commit human rights violations against Palestinians. Six of the eight Board of Regents members signed a joint statementThursday, Dec. 14, noting that they strongly opposed any action involving the boycott, divestment or sanction of Israel. Regents Shauna Ryder Diggs and Kathy White did not sign the statement. READ MORE

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Argentina: “If only Alberto Nisman were alive to see justice finally being pursued”

Posted on December 15, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
Iranian Terror. Argentinian Cover Up. Justice at Last?
by Mark Dubowitz and Toby Dershowitz
December 11,  2017

One morning last week, Argentines woke up to a political earthquake: A judge had charged a former president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with “treason against the homeland,” punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Her crime? Nothing less than covering up Iran’s role in one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the Americas before Sept. 11. On July 18, 1994, Ibrahim Hussein Berro, an operative of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, drove a van filled with 606 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil into the Buenos Aires Jewish community center, known as AMIA. More than 300 Argentines were wounded; 85 were murdered. It remains the bloodiest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history. READ MORE

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Bal Harbour — “where Jews, people of color and dogs were not allowed” — passes law defining anti-semitism

Posted on December 14, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY WIRE
Florida Town Becomes First U.S. Municipality To Give Police Definition Of Anti-Semitism
by Paul Miller
December 14, 2017

On Wednesday evening, Bal Harbour, Florida became the first municipality in the country to implement an ordinance that provides law enforcement with a definition of anti-Semitism, enabling them to investigate such incidents as hate crimes. Originally passed last month, a second public reading is required by the town bylaws before it can become law. By unanimous vote, the proposed ordinance became law and went into effect immediately upon passage….The new law allows law enforcement to use the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism as a guideline, while at the same time permitting police to use their discretion in determining whether an incident can be classified as a hate crime. READ MORE

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“Saudi Arabia’s rulers have lots of worries, but Trump’s announcement about the holy city isn’t one of them”

Posted on December 14, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

FOREIGN POLICY
Mohammed Bin Salman Doesn’t Want to Talk about Jerusalem
by Robert Satloff
December 14, 2017

Saudi Arabia, the protector of Islam and home to its two holiest sites, is a good place to judge the impact of President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on U.S. interests in the region. Set aside the reaction of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and their state sponsors in Tehran and Damascus. And the angry responses from the Palestinian Authority and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, with its large and boisterous Palestinian population, were certainly to be expected. The real question is how America’s friends one step removed from the circle of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would react. READ MORE

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“Leaders of the North American Reform movement decried President Trump’s announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city”

Posted on December 14, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Jewish Agency chief: Reform criticism of Trump’s Jerusalem move was ‘terrible’
by Staff and JTA
December 12, 2017

Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky on Tuesday lambasted the Reform movement’s critical response to US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last week. “The Reform response to the recognition of Jerusalem was terrible,” Sharansky, an influential backer of the Reform movement’s position on the Western Wall and other matters, said in a Hebrew-language radio interview. “Everything that comes out of Trump is bad, from their perspective. When the leader of a superpower recognizes Jerusalem, first you have to welcome it, then offer disagreement. Here it was the opposite,” he told Israel Radio. READ MORE

JERUSALEM POST Daniel Gordis: It’s time to show a little love…”Having said that, when someone we find distasteful in the extreme does the right thing, even for the wrong reasons, intellectual honesty demands that we acknowledge the rightness of the move”

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The media’s reign of error: “If there’s a major news story over the past 70 years that the American media have botched more often because of bias and wishful thinking, I’d love to hear about it”

Posted on December 14, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

WEEKLY STANDARD
While Truth Puts On Its Shoes
by Mark Hemingway
December 15, 2017

Covering the Trump presidency has not always been the media’s finest hour, but even grading on that curve, the month of December has brought astonishing screwups. Professor and venerable political observer Walter Russell Mead tweeted on December 8, “I remember Watergate pretty well, and I don’t remember anything like this level of journalistic carelessness back then. The constant stream of ‘bombshells’ that turn into duds is doing much more to damage the media than anything Trump could manage.” READ MORE

NEW YORK POST The media are killing themselves with botched anti-Trump reporting

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Jewish Social Justice Warriors: “In today’s climate, speaking the truth about those who do physical violence to Jews is itself called violence”

Posted on December 13, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

TABLET MAG
And are we prepared for postmodern activism and the new realities of the Jewish people?
by Josh Block
December 11, 2017

…Yet too many Jewish leaders continue to fetishize a wonderful 1960s model of social-justice activism whose foundational values are, in fact, a main target of today’s “social justice” advocates. The Reform movement and much of the unaffiliated American Jewish community has failed to recognize the troubling transformation that has altered the meaning of “social justice” beyond the point where its old-school liberals still recognize the term. A postmodern, moral-relativist zeitgeist, one that is almost unrecognizable to the older form of liberalism, suddenly broke out of its theoretical, academic confines and began flooding the consciousness of social progressivism, especially on campuses, and almost always in the movements to which young Jewish activists are attracted. READ MORE

DAILYWIRE Feminist Lists 10 Questions You Should Ask On A First Date. They’re INSANE. or an alternative point of view 5 Questions Every Man Should Ask On A First Date To Weed Out The Man-Hating Feminists

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Chanukah 2017: Hellenized Jews viewpoints “more “sophisticated” and more universalistic than the structured, rule-driven, and limiting vision of G-d’s covenant”

Posted on December 13, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY WIRE
Chanukah 2017: The Modern-Day Hellenizers And The Issue of Jerusalem
by Elliott Hamilton
December 12, 2017

…While most Jews learn that Chanukah represents the Jewish people’s triumphant victory over the Seleucid Empire, the truth is that the Maccabean Revolt was one of the greatest examples of fratricide between different camps of Jews in Judea…Despite the freedom the Jewish people possessed to maintain their traditions, many Jews opted out of their culture to adopt Hellenized customs and beliefs. The Hellenized Jews, in turn, managed to acquire more power and influence amongst their Greek conquerors than the High Priest of Jerusalem. It was not the first time that the Jewish people found themselves divided in its history, but the significance of the rise of Hellenized Jewry changes how we understand the story of Chanukah. READ MORE

FREE BEACON Jewish Studies Scholars Sign Statement Condemning Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital

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US (Deep) State Dept: Jerusalem may be the capital of Israel but “we can’t definitively say Jerusalem is located in Israel”

Posted on December 13, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

FRONT PAGE MAG
Deep State Resisters at State Dept. Defy Jerusalem Directive
by Ari Lieberman
December 12, 2017

…[US State Department] resistance is motivated by a myriad of reasons. Some simply hate Trump and this offers an opportunity to engage in obstructionism. Some are deeply anti-Semitic and their sympathies lie squarely in the Arab camp. Others view change and bold action as a threat and prefer the status quo. Whatever their motivations, they are working in concert to delay and obstruct the president’s bold new policy initiatives aimed at supporting a loyal ally and acknowledging reality while at the same time breaking the deadlock and reviving an anemic peace process based on a foundation of truth. This isn’t the first time that the White House was confronted with such obstructionism from the State Department. READ MORE

THE TOWER Former State Dept. Official Dennis Ross: Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital was “Long Overdue”

CNBC Sarah Stern from EMET takes on Former NATO ambassador Nick Burns on the subject of Jerusalem recognition

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Starring Highland Park native Rachel Brosnahan: “‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ is a successful character-driven period piece that’s both old and new, putting caustic humor in the skillful hands of a strong female lead” [VIDEO]

Posted on December 13, 2017 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Amazon gifts us 8 marvelous episodes of Jewish dramedy like we’ve never seen
by Jordan Hoffman
December 13, 2017

This year, your Hanukkah gifts are coming from Amazon. Eight episodes (one for each night!) of warm, witty and extremely Jewish television have dominated my world of late, thanks to Amazon’s distribution model of dumping an entire season on your doorstep, ringing the bell, then running off into the night…“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” the latest from “Gilmore Girls” producer Amy Sherman-Palladino (who also writes and directs the bulk of the series), is set in late 1950s New York and is a fever dream of nostalgia and wish-fulfillment…As my friends and I keep saying to one another, “this is ‘Mad Men’ if ‘Mad Men’ were, you know, fun.” READ MORE

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