Pondering the state of American Jewry
According to Algemeiner, “More than 160 antisemitic hate crimes were documented by the NYPD in 2018, an increase of almost 25 percent over the previous year,” and now there’s been another attack on a Jewish man, this time on a Saturday night in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights. (I leave it to you to consider: is 19 …
Israel’s IDF soldiers aren’t just brave, they’re cultured, too. One young female soldier entertained people waiting in an Israeli train station by playing Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody with an unparalleled proficiency. Her playing was full of Jewish soul. I guess we know what she’s going to do when she gets out of the army. May she …
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Brazil for the inauguration of the new president-elect Jair Bolsonaro, said it’s only a matter of time until Bolsonaro moves the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem. “Bolsonaro told me it was ‘when, not if’ he moves the embassy to Jerusalem,” said Netanyahu in a meeting with leaders of …
Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned in the wake of Trump’s announcement that the U.S. is pulling its troops out of Syria. Mattis made it clear that his resignation was a protest over the move, in his resignation letter. His letter explained that he’s leaving his post so the president can have a secretary of defense …
An article in the Jerusalem Post begins, “Antisemitism pervades the European Union.” That somehow reads differently than “antisemitism on the rise.” And this was a comprehensive survey, involving almost 16,500 study participants. Among the results: 28% of those surveyed experienced some kind of antisemitic harassment at least once over the past year, while 39% experienced …
A year ago, a man named Alen Califano walked into a Jewish nursing home and went berserk, repeatedly, for instance, “bashing an 84-year-old man on the head with a fire extinguisher while shouting, ‘I’m going to kill you, you (bleep bleep) Jew!’” But while Califano’s motivations and intent seem clear as day, Judge Iacovetta isn’t …
By now, everyone knows what Marc Lamont Hill said and did to lose his job at CNN. He called for the destruction of the State of Israel. Of course, he couched that call in the language of our times, speaking of the need to free Palestine, “from river to sea.” Veteran commentator Yisrael Medad fisked …
Jewish Democrats may have been upset to find they’d been duped about Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s BDS leanings. Especially since she denied being in favor of BDS during the election and changed her tune only after she was in. But there is still something to give us Jewish nachas: Omar is pushing to remove the ban …
A recent article by Saul Jay Singer, “The Anti-Semitism of George Bernard Shaw,” was interesting for the awful historical record it presented of the famous playwright. The article offers many antisemitic quotes as proof, for instance this statement: “No doubt Jews are obnoxious creatures. Any competent historian or psychoanalyst can bring a mass of incontrovertible …
In the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in which 11 innocents lost their lives, there have been many gestures of solidarity. A new Pittsburgh Penguins shirt sports a Jewish star. The Pittsburgh Steelers logo changed its background color to black to reflect the darkness of a city gone into mourning. A meme accompanying the …