January 26, 2022

Antisemitic flyers found in neighborhoods in at least three cities over the weekend

Source: NBC

Residents in at least three cities across the country found antisemitic flyers outside their homes on Sunday, according to authorities.

The flyers distributed overnight in neighborhoods in and around Denver, San Francisco and Miami all appear to be similar in nature, according to local NBC affiliates and regional officials.

"Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish," many, if not all, of the flyers said. Listed on the paper were government officials who have played a part in managing the pandemic and the flyers say are Jewish, according to local NBC affiliates and regional officials.

---snip---

In the Denver metro area, "white supremacist and anti-vaccine propaganda was also distributed locally with the antisemitic messages," according to the Anti-Defamation League Mountain States Region.



Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/antisemitic-flyers-found-in-neighborhoods-in-at-least-three-cities-over-the-weekend/ar-AAT8xdx?ocid=msedgntp

---

According to the ADL, these also popped up again in Maryland and Texas, as well, this weekend.

January 25, 2022

Four maps that explain the Russia-Ukraine conflict

The conflict playing out between Russia and Ukraine is one marked by land borders and shaped by strategic influence. Moscow sees Ukraine as an important buffer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO. Ukraine sees Russia as an aggressor that has already occupied parts of Ukrainian territory.

Here are four maps that help explain the deep roots of the conflict and where things stand right now.

How are Russia and Ukraine linked historically?
The historical links date as far back as the 9th century, when a group of people called the Rus moved their capital to Kyiv — a legacy President Vladimir Putin has often invoked when arguing that Ukraine is bound to Russia.

How Ukraine became Ukraine, in 7 maps
Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until it declared independence in August 1991.



more...

January 20, 2022

Opinions The myth that Jews are all-powerful is the biggest threat to Jewish lives

During Shabbat morning prayer services at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Tex., Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker let in a man who was asking for help. The man soon turned a gun on the rabbi, holding him and three other congregants hostage in a harrowing 11-hour ordeal. He ordered the rabbi to call the leader of Central Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, and demand that she free a convicted terrorist serving an 86-year sentence.

The idea that a rabbi could overturn a criminal conviction at the drop of a hat is such a stereotype of a stereotype that it’s almost comical. And yet it is precisely this type of absurd conspiratorial thinking that presents the greatest threat to Jewish lives.

“This was somebody who literally thought that Jews control the world,” Cytron-Walker told a reporter at the Forward. “He thought he could come into a synagogue, and we could get on the phone with the ‘Chief Rabbi of America’ and he would get what he needed.”

This weekend’s Texas hostage situation highlights the deadliest threat to Jews today: the myth of Jewish power. The conspiracy theory that Jews are uniquely evil and influential has led to the spilling of Jewish blood since at least the Middle Ages and heavily influenced the Nazi ideology that left 11 million dead, including 6 million Jews. But it isn’t just systematic use of the trope for political ends, on the level of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” that Jews should fear. Even the sort of casual “jokes” that spread online in extremist circles can be deadly.

more...

One needs go no further than the comment section of this article to see what the article is discussing in action!

January 19, 2022

Antisemitic tropes cited by the Texas synagogue hostage-taker have deep roots

Malik Faisal Akram’s decision to take four hostages at a Texas synagogue left many wondering: Why Colleyville? Why the Beth Israel Congregation?

The 44-year-old British citizen chose the small, tightknit congregation, according to his hostages and those who heard him on the live stream of Saturday services, because he saw it as the closest gathering of Jewish people to a federal facility in Fort Worth where a convicted terrorist was being held.

Akram wanted the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman serving an 86-year sentence in federal prison in Fort Worth for trying to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. And he apparently thought the Jewish worshipers assembled for the Sabbath could make that happen — drawing upon centuries-old antisemitic tropes and conspiracies that Jews secretly control the moves of politicians and manipulate world events to their advantage.

Akram told the assembled that he chose to attack a synagogue because “America only cares about Jewish lives,” according to Beth Israel member Stacey Silverman, who viewed the online Shabbat service.

“He even said at one point that ‘I’m coming to you because I know President Biden will do things for the Jews. I know President Trump will do things for the Jews,’ ” Jeffrey Cohen, one of the hostages, told CNN. Akram “came here, he came to us, he terrorized us, because he believed … these antisemitic tropes that the Jews control everything, and if I go to the Jews, they can pull the strings,” Cohen said.

more...

January 17, 2022

Muslim groups show support for Jewish community after Dallas hostage crisis

In the aftermath of the hostage crisis in Colleyville, Texas at the Congregation Beth Israel, religious groups are coming together to condemn the actions of Malik Faisal Akram, the British national behind Saturday’s crisis.

“I swear to my lord and maker, that there is no act that can justify going into a holy place of worship and holding people hostage,” said Khalid Hamideh of the Islamic Association of North Texas. “I don’t care what your motivation is, it’s entirely wrong and unjust.”

---snip---

“Antisemitism is real, and we feel with our Jewish brothers and sisters,” Hamideh said. He added that individuals who commit these crimes are doing “something that is absolutely unconstitutional, illegal, inhumane – because we feel the same thing with Islamophobia.”

The Islamic community in North Texas has had strong relations with the Jewish community for many years. Hamideh recalls times when he would visit the synagogue to learn more about the Jewish faith, and when the synagogue’s congregants would, in turn, come to his mosque to learn about Islam.

more...

January 17, 2022

Texas rabbi details standoff: Gunman 'literally thought that Jews control the world'

COLLEYVILLE, Texas — During the nearly 11 hours he was held hostage inside Congregation Beth Israel on Saturday, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker focused on what he’d learned in security workshops — “Do whatever you have to do to get out,” he said — and on making sure that the gunman saw him and the three other congregants inside the synagogue as human beings.

But Cytron-Walker was able to steal brief moments for reflection, silently praying the Sh’ma and offering the Hashkiveinu: “Grant, O God, that we lie down in peace, and raise us up, our guardian, to life renewed. Spread over us the shelter of your peace.”

As the hours passed and Malik Faisal Akram, the British gunman, became increasingly agitated, Cytron-Walker saw an opportunity to escape. One hostage had been released earlier in the day, and Cytron-Walker told the two men who remained with him to run for a fire door before throwing a chair at the assailant and sprinting after them.

“It was really a matter of looking and waiting for an opportunity where all of us could go and no one would be left behind,” Cytron-Walker said in an interview with the Forward on Monday morning.

more...

November 7, 2021

Marvel finally adds a gay title hero in "Eternals," only to have film banned in some countries

Marvel fans everywhere have been transfixed by stories of heroes who can fly, turn into monsters, manipulate elements, or have super speed.

But some have a hard time with a hero . . . who also happens to be queer.

In the latest MCU film "Eternals," directed by Oscar winner Chloe Zhao, a race of immortal beings with superhuman powers secretly live on Earth for thousands of years and fight evil Deviants before they destroy human life on Earth. One of these heroes is Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry, "Atlanta&quot , who has a relationship with a human man and starts a family with him.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have reportedly pulled "Eternals" from theaters because Phastos shares a same-sex kiss with his partner in the movie. The LA Times reports, "Listings for 'Eternals,' which had been publicized before, are unavailable on websites in both countries, as well as in Kuwait. Regional booking website elCinema.com, which posts theater listings by country as well as what's coming soon, also doesn't list 'Eternals' in several Gulf countries."

more...

Pathetic.

October 27, 2021

Remembering those murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue

Today is a time to remember and to grieve over the lives lost to a bigot yelling “All Jews must die” as he entered the synagogue where three congregations had their homes and murdered 11 Jews, because they were Jews! We remember...

Joyce Fienberg
Richard Gottfried
Rose Mallinger
Jerry Rabinowitz
Cecil Rosenthal
David Rosenthal
Bernice Simon
Sylvan Simon
Daniel Stein
Melvin Wax
Irving Younger

Anti-Semitism is real! Anti-Semitism is a threat! Anti-Semitism is bigotry!

October 27, 2021

Neo-Nazi group hangs 'Vax the Jews' banner in Austin, Texas just a few blocks from JCC and synagogue

Members of a neo-Nazi group hung a banner from a bridge in Austin, Texas Sunday with the message “Vax the Jews.”

The banner was put up by members of the Goyim Defense League, a group the Anti-Defamation League calls “a loose network of individuals connected by their virulent antisemitism.” The group’s name itself is a parody of the Anti-Defamation League using the Yiddish word “goyim,” which means “non-Jews” and can have an insulting connotation. Photos on social media showed members of the group standing behind the banner making the Nazi salute.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who is Jewish, condemned the incident in a tweet. “I am heartbroken to see antisemitic hatred in Austin, a welcoming and respectful place. Hatred of any kind has no place in our city,” he wrote, linking to the ADL’s website form for reporting incidents of bias or antisemitism.

The banner was hung over the MoPac Expressway on the city’s west side, just a few blocks away from the Shalom Austin Jewish Community Center and several synagogues. The banner incident came just a few days after racist and antisemitic graffiti was discovered at Anderson High School, about a mile and a half away from the JCC.

https://twitter.com/IGD_News/status/1452154122736574466

more...

October 27, 2021

(Jewish Group) After Facebook Papers, ADL CEO condemns Facebook for hate speech and violence

(NOTE: I am also including a link to the ADL's Campus anti-Semitism report at the bottom of this article. IF someone feels taht should be its own thread, I won't be offended at its reposting.)

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt has condemned Facebook for allowing the incitement of violence on the platform, making the ADL one of the many organizations to speak out in response to a series of reports illuminating systemic policy failures at the social media company.

On Monday, after consortium of news organizations began publishing articles based on leaked internal documents taken by whistleblower Frances Haugen before she left the company, Greenblatt told CNN that the ADL is focused on encouraging advertisers to boycott Facebook. That action, he said, is an important response to increasing evidence of the company’s knowledge of ways in which its platform is used to incite violence and spread hate, including antisemitism.

“Companies can vote with their wallets and decide where they want to build their brands, redirecting resources away from Facebook,” Greenblatt said. “Mark Zuckerberg would have you believe [Facebook] was doing all it could. Now we know the truth: He was aware and did nothing about it.”

The documents provided by Haugen, known as the Facebook Papers, shed light on issues ranging from the company’s role in the January 6 insurrection to its challenges moderating non-English content, resulting in the proliferation of terrorist content and hate speech in countries like Afghanistan and Myanmar, as well as, in other countries, the suppression of ordinary speech.

more...



Related:

The ADL-Hillel Campus Antisemitism Survey: 2021

Antisemitism has been a problem on college and university campuses for decades. But while the climate for Jewish students had been improving for many years, we are seeing an alarming new uptick in the number of reported antisemitic incidents across the country. Swastikas, Nazi symbols and other antisemitic graffiti have been reported on numerous campuses, and antisemitic tropes hurled at Jewish students have made headlines. Most notably, white supremacists marched through the campus of the University of Virginia in 2017 shouting “Jews will not replace us.”

In the aftermath of increased conflict between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, students at college campuses across the United States experienced an even sharper increase in antisemitic activity, including many incidents not directly connected to Israel. Antisemitic incidents peaked during the 2020-2021 academic year, reaching an all-time high of 244 incidents, even though many campuses were physically closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From past research and conversations with students, we know that antisemitic activity on campus makes some Jewish students feel unwelcome or unsupported by their campus community. According to one recent survey, Jewish students were the least likely among their peers to view their campus as welcoming to religious diversity.

The Anti-Defamation League and Hillel International are dedicated to supporting Jewish students and addressing all acts of antisemitism. We are working together to respond to antisemitic activity on campus, and to proactively counter the underlying hatreds and biases that lead to it through education and engagement. To do so, it is vital to ground ourselves in data to understand the nature of antisemitism on college and university campuses today and the experiences of Jewish students. This study was conducted to better understand these national trends by hearing from a nationally representative sample of Jewish students across the United States. This report explores the extent to which Jewish college students face antisemitism and exclusion on campus and seeks to understand how campus communities can most effectively support them. Understanding these trends will help inform our efforts to partner with and educate campus administrators, Hillel professionals, and students, to ensure Jewish students are secure, supported, and empowered.

more... (Note: This is story is on multiple pages, so follow the "next section" links at the bottom of each segment.)