Hoffman: “Without Israel, Jews would largely be defenseless at worst, and still subject to the goodwill of other nations at best — mind you, many nations that have not always been reliable in protecting Jews and Jewish communities””

Posted on October 25, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FUTURE OF JEWISH
My Controversial Vision for the Jewish People
Joshua Hoffman
October 25, 2024

…The creation of Israel provided not only a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, but also a vital symbol of Jewish resilience, autonomy, and identity. Without Israel, Jews across the world would have faced ongoing displacement and vulnerability….Quite literally, the Mossad (Israel’s foreign intelligence agency) has departments dedicated to looking after Jews and Jewish targets across the world. The volume of global terrorist attacks planned against Jews and Israelis in foreign countries since October 7th and prevented by the Mossad has at least doubled that of the preceding year, reaching more than 50 such attempted attacks worldwide. Just prior to October 7th, Mossad Director David Barnea revealed that the Mossad had thwarted 27 global terrorist incidents in foreign countries which Iran had planned against Jews and Israelis. READ MORE

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Highland Parkers: Turn over your ballot and VOTE “YES” on the referendum to allow ALL residents who wish to serve on the Council the ability to do so

Posted on October 25, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

THE RECORD
Background and breakdown of Highland Park’s liquor-license referendum
Joe Coughlin
October 24, 2024

A topic that polarized Highland Park for much of 2024 finds its way to the ballot this election. Voters can weigh in on whether the City should amend its code to allow elected officials to hold liquor licenses. The current code prohibits City Council members from doing so, a sleepy, Prohibition-era law that led to months of public debate, substantial resident feedback and eventually the resignation of Councilmember Jeff Hoobler, who is named on the liquor license for Ravinia Brewing Company. The ballot question is an advisory referendum meant to gauge the community’s stance on the issue. It is not binding and does not require any action from the City Council. READ MORE

Highland Parkers: Remember to turn over your ballot and Vote YES!

Vote YES on the HP advisory referendum, which supports a more inclusive and transparent local government. More specifically, the referendum seeks to overturn a silly local liquor licensing law – dating back to Prohibition and first noticed last January – that limits City Council participation by individuals who hold liquor licenses. This directly conflicts with the wishes of the voters of Highland Park, who elected Jeff Hoobler to the Council in April 2023 knowing he co-owns Ravinia Brewery and holds a local liquor license.

Hundreds of community members wrote emails and appeared at Council meetings to support an amendment of the local law, but the amendment failed to garner the required four votes and Hoobler resigned to avoid losing his business.

Tell City Council that we are an inclusive City where all business owners–including liquor license holders–should be able to serve. It’s time to overturn this antiquated, long forgotten law. Click here for more information.

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IDF announces that Mordechai Amoyel, Aviad Nayman, Shmuel Harari, Sergeant First Class Gai Ben-Haroosh, and Shuvael Ben-Natan fell in battle in Lebanon

Posted on October 24, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

ARUTZ SHEVA
5 soldiers fall in battle in Lebanon
October 24, 2024

Five IDF soldiers, Command Sergeant Major (res.) Mordechai Haim Amoyal, Sergeant Major (res.) Shmuel Harari, Master Sergeant (res.) Shlomo Aviad Nayman, Sergeant First Class (res.) Shuvael Ben-Natan, and Sergeant First Class Gai Ben-Haroosh fell in battle in Lebanon, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced Thursday evening. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit stated that in the incident in which four of the soldiers were killed, an IDF officer and two reservists in the 222nd Battalion, 2nd “Carmeli” Brigade, were severely injured. In addition, a combat officer in the 75th Battalion, 7th Armored Brigade, was severely injured today (Thursday) during combat in southern Lebanon. READ MORE

BREITBART Joel Pollak: IDF Kills Hamas Terrorist Who Murdered Dozens in Shelter; Was UNRWA Employee The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Thursday that it had killed a Hamas commander who led the attack on dozens of civilians on October 7, 2023, who had fled the Nova music festival and hidden in roadside shelters. In addition to being a mass murderer, the IDF said, Mohammad Abu Itiwi had also worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

ALGEMEINER Israeli Army Chief Sees Possibility for ‘Sharp Conclusion’ to Hezbollah Conflict Israel’s military chief said there was a possibility for a “sharp conclusion” to the conflict with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, the military said on Thursday. “In the north, there’s a possibility of reaching a sharp conclusion. We thoroughly dismantled Hezbollah’s senior chain of command,” Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said in a video statement from a security assessment in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

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Biden administration leaks include two top-secret reports by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency on Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran’s missile attack this month: They detail the aircraft and munitions to be deployed as well as military exercises that appear to be training for the strike.

Posted on October 24, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Pentagon suspects employee of Iranian origin in Israeli strike plan leak
Reuters, Staff
October 22, 2024

The Pentagon has reportedly named Chief of Staff of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, Ariane Tabatabai, as the prime suspect for an alleged leak of classified documents, Sky News Arabia reported on Tuesday, citing a senior Pentagon official. Tabatabai, an American of Iranian origin, is also an officer in US Naval Intelligence. According to the report, members of Congress wrote a letter in 2023 to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin against keeping Tabatabai in her position. The members of Congress urged Secretary Austin to “immediately suspend Tabatabai’s security clearance pending further review, as the State Department did with his former supervisor, Robert Malley,” the report stated. READ MORE

NEW YORK POST Editorial Board: Leaked intel on Israel’s Iran strike plans takes White House war on Israel to a new level How the heck did top-secret US intel on Israel’s military plans wind up on a pro-Iranian Telegram channel? Whether it was incompetence, hostile espionage or an intentional leak, it was a blow to a US ally caught in a multi-front war — with President Biden, Veep Kamala Harris and the rest of their administration constantly carping about Israel’s tactics. Countries spy on their friends all the time, but sabotaging them is another matter.  

GATESTONE The Biden-Harris Administration Owes Israel’s Netanyahu An Apology  Netanyahu deserves credit for ignoring the warnings and threats by Biden and his senior officials. Thanks to Netanyahu, Hamas has been significantly debilitated and Sinwar has been eliminated, making the Middle East a safer place. It now remains to be seen whether the Biden-Harris administration will reconsider its failed foreign policies and apologize to the Israeli prime minister for attempting to undermine his efforts to combat terrorism and bring more security and stability not only to Israel, but the entire Middle East as well.

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CBS in the news again this week for Israel-bashing. One of their producers asks: “Are the Jews human like us?”

Posted on October 23, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

CAMERA
Double Standards at CBS
October 15, 2024

…CBS Evening News, on the same day (Oct. 8), featured a story by foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer heroizing the Gaza producer’s war coverage and gushing that “his resolve is simply astonishing.” These CBS journalists were celebrating Al-Ghoul’s coverage, based on his own personal experiences as a Gaza resident during the Hamas-Israel war. The question is what do they, and the executives at CBS make of the CBS Gaza producer’s pre-existing racist and dehumanizing view of Jews? In 2022, Marwan Al-Ghoul posted on social media that “34 years of news coverage can be summed up: “Are the Jews human like us?” READ MORE

NATIONAL REVIEW CBS Producer in Gaza Has History of Antisemitic, Anti-Israel Commentary: ‘Are Jews Really Human Like Us?’…“It just seems to us that CBS is willing to ignore or excuse antisemitism from its staff while penalizing journalists who challenge anti-Israel narratives,” said Jonah Cohen, a spokesman for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA). CAMERA, a pro-Israel media-monitoring organization, has been leading the effort to expose Al Ghoul’s commentary and what it sees as CBS’s hypocrisy.

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Across the Jewish world, particularly in North America, there’s a wave of “October 8th Jews” who are rediscovering their Jewish identity in the aftermath of the October 7 attack

Posted on October 22, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
The surge of October 8 Jews and the new wave of Jewish reconnection
Zvika Klein
October 24, 2024

…That all changed on October 7, 2023. Like so many Jews around the world, he was shaken by the brutal attack on Israel, but for him, the impact was especially personal. “It was like a switch flipped,” he said. “Suddenly, I wasn’t just watching events unfold from afar – I felt connected to them in a way I never had before. I realized how distant I’d been, not just from Israel, but from my own Jewish identity.” He now calls himself an “October 8th Jew” – someone who, after years of living disconnected from Jewish life, suddenly found himself thrust back into the community. “It’s like I woke up on October 8 and realized I had been living in a bubble. Now, I have to learn how to be Jewish again,” he said, his voice full of a mix of confusion and determination. “I feel like a teenager raised by wolves, who suddenly needs to re-learn how to be human – or in this case, how to be a Jew.” He’s not alone. READ MORE

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This helps explain how Hezbollah and Hamas had dramatically increased resources to terrorize and murder Israelis

Posted on October 22, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

FDD
Biden Administration Admits Iran’s Oil Exports Have Grown Exponentially in Value and Volume
Saeed Ghasseminejad
September 21, 2024

Earlier this month, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) published its first report about Iran’s petroleum exports as mandated by the Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum(SHIP) Act enacted earlier this year. The EIA reported that Iran sold $144 billion in the first three years of the Biden administration, $100 billion more than what Tehran exported in the last two years of the Trump administration when the oil sanctions were in effect…The report confirmed what critics of current U.S. policy have been saying: During the Biden administration, Iran’s petroleum exports have increased in value and volume. The report found that between 2021 and 2023, Tehran sold $144 billion of petroleum and petroleum products. This contrasts sharply with the “Maximum Pressure” period, during which Iran’s oil exports declined to just $16 billion in 2020. READ MORE

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The boy, now 13, believes he was targeted because he’d mentioned he wanted to join the IDF when asked in class about future careers

Posted on October 21, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK POST
NYC 7th-grader’s beating and antisemitic attack was so bad his family moved states
Dean Balsamini
October 19, 2024

A Staten Island boy was beaten in a schoolyard by kids who spewed antisemitic hate — and school officials did nothing to stop the abuse, his family said in a lawsuit. The Jewish student went out for recess at Egbert Intermediate School in Midland Beach on Oct. 25, 2023, when he was chased by a gang of kids, pushed to the ground, while screaming ‘F–k Israel! It’s all your fault!,” his mom said. The beatdown of the 4-foot-8, 85-pound boy came two weeks after the Hamas massacre of 1,200 innoncent Israelis…The boy told a teacher, who reported it to the assistant principal and principal, but “school employees did not seek medical attention” for him or immediately inform his mom, she claimed. READ MORE

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Polin is pulling out all the stops to turn his personal tragedy to the benefit of children, of all ages, creeds, and religions, who are in the care of the Alyn Hospital

Posted on October 21, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

JPOST
Father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin rides through grief with Alyn hospital
Barry Davis
October 23, 2024

There is so much sorrow around in these parts these days. And there is no end in sight, as more and more of our young – and older – men and women, not to mention thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children, pay the price of the violence all around us. Many of us look on with alarm, if not mounting despair and a sense of hopelessness. But for the likes of Jon Polin, the events of October 7 and their grim aftermath cast the darkest shadow imaginable. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months, the name Hersh Goldberg-Polin will ring an instant shrill clarion call. Hersh was the 23-year-old son of Chicago-born and -bred Jon and his wife, Rachel Goldberg. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Six slain hostages were likely Sinwar’s shields, lived for months on energy bars The six Israeli hostages murdered in a Rafah tunnel at the end of August were likely human shields for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and survived for months on energy bars until they were finally executed, too weak to be moved with the terror chief, a TV report said on Saturday. The Channel 12 investigation shed light on why Sinwar, long believed to have surrounded himself with a group of hostages as human shields, left the tunnels of Rafah, and was without any captives around him when he was killed by the IDF on Wednesday. 

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94 percent of Jewish Republicans and 83 percent of Jewish Democrats responded that they consider themselves to be supporters of Israel

Posted on October 21, 2024 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Kamala Harris to Receive Lowest Share of Jewish Vote for a Democrat Since 1988
Jack Elbaum
October 22, 2024

US Vice President Kamala Harris is leading former US President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race among Jewish voters by a margin of 67 percent to 31 percent, according to a new Manhattan Institute poll. Such an outcome among Jewish voters would represent the highest vote share for a Republican candidate — and the lowest for a Democratic candidate — since 1988, when Michael Dukakis ran against George H.W. Bush and received 64 percent of the Jewish vote. While Jews have long been one of the most supportive groups of the Democratic Party, there are also divisions by denomination. Orthodox Jews prefer Trump by a 59-41 margin, while Reform Jews prefer Harris by a 75-22 margin, according to the data. READ MORE

JNS Harris genocide accusation ‘shocking,’ says former Israeli ambassador Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren on Sunday called for the White House to state unequivocally that Jerusalem is not committing genocide in Gaza, after Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to equivocate on the issue. The Democratic nominee for president appeared to suggest at a campaign event in Milwaukee that the Jewish state was committing genocide, in an incident involving an anti-Israel heckler.

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