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Search Results for: American Jews

Squad Culture wars USA 

In Trump v the “Squad”, American Jews have picked the wrong target

Melanie, , ,

In the showdown between U.S. President Donald Trump and “the Squad” of four far-left minority congresswomen, Jewish organizations in America have overwhelmingly condemned Trump’s remarks. Trump tweeted that certain “progressive congresswomen,” widely assumed to be Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), should go back to the “totally broken” countries they had come from and sort them out before telling America how to run its own affairs. Jewish organizations, which are overwhelmingly liberal and anti-Trump, reacted viscerally, accusing the president of “echoing the racist…

USA 

The muddled obsessions of progressive American Jews

Melanie, ,

Having spent the past week or so in Los Angeles, I have been struck once again by the deep anxiety in the American Jewish community over the intensifying demonization of Israel on campus and over self-styled progressive Jews. I have also been exposed to the even more intense divisions within that community over President Donald Trump. One of the most bizarre conceits among those who hate him is that he’s an antisemite, or at the very least knowingly encourages antisemites. A guest of the Hanukkah celebration at the White House…

USA 

How Pittsburgh has deepened the chasm dividing American Jews

Melanie, , ,

For Diaspora Jews, the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre has felt like a family bereavement. Among Jews in America, the trauma has been profound. Their sense of inviolability has been shattered. The fact that Jews were gunned down in the sacred space of a synagogue service has caused even greater torment. Yet in the midst of the communal grief, something has surely been overlooked. In 2014, six were gunned down and murdered in Jerusalem’s Har Nof synagogue. Attacks on Jews in Israel are relentless. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has said…

Israel 

As I see it: American Jews get it wrong

Melanie, ,

For years, Jews have been told they are too quick to see antisemitism where it doesn’t exist. This taunt has been used to dismiss real evidence of anti-Jewish attitudes as mere paranoia. Now American Jews are lamentably giving credence to this false charge. For they have led the hysterical and demonstrably absurd accusation that Donald Trump and his head of strategy Stephen Bannon are antisemites. During the presidential election campaign, Trump claimed that people like billionaire financier George Soros, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein…

Culture wars Israel 

Junking the Jews is behind our current Hobbesian nightmare

Melanie, , ,

International pressure on Israel not to extend its sovereignty over parts of the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria is increasing. More than 1,000 European parliamentarians have signed a letter asserting that this proposal, which they term “annexation,” would “encourage other states with territorial claims to disregard basic principles of international law.” Following the brutal death in police custody of George Floyd, racial anarchy in America is increasing. In Seattle and Washington, D.C., there have been attempts to set up “autonomous zones” that exclude the police. Statues and other artworks…

Culture wars Israel Jewish people 

Jews’ lives matter

Melanie, , ,

The Labour Party leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has sacked the party’s shadow education secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, for tweeting a link to an interview in which actress Maxine Peake gave vent to an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Peake repeated the baseless claim that has been bouncing round the internet that the tactics used by American police on George Floyd, who died under the knee of a police officer pinning him down, were “learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services”. This is a malevolent falsehood. As the Israeli police have said: “There is…

Britain Culture wars Jewish people USA 

Why even black and brown-skinned Jews are “white imperialists”

Melanie, , ,

The experience of being an immigrant group and living as a minority in an often hostile culture is, of course, one that diaspora Jews know only too well. There are obviously huge differences, though, between the Jewish and black experience. Yet one of the most important is overlooked. In Britain and America, as we have seen over the past few weeks, a movement is under way to rewrite American and British history with the aim of changing the culture. The charge is that white society is endemically racist. This is…

leftward Jewish people 

UK Jews too eager to embrace Starmer’s still dubious Labour party

Melanie, , ,

In both Britain and America, the Jewish community is increasingly badly served by leaders who seem less and less able to distinguish between the friends and the enemies of the Jewish people. In America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has been convulsed by controversy over appointing Dianne Lob as its new chairman. Lob is the former president of HIAS, an organization originally established to assist Jewish refugees but which has morphed into a body closely associated with anti-Israel and Islamist groups. In Britain, this week a…

Britain Culture wars USA 

Political auto-immune disease among diaspora Jews

Melanie, , ,

Why are so many diaspora Jews doing the dirty work of their mortal enemies for them? In the United States, most Jews still support the Democratic Party despite the refusal by some politicians — namely, the four freshmen congresswomen who call themselves “the Squad,” and have made anti-Jewish and anti-Israel remarks — to distance themselves from the Jew-baiting Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. American Jewish leaders are also deeply reluctant to speak out against black or Muslim Jew-hatred, of which there have been some shocking recent examples. Immediately after…

synchronised Britain Culture wars 

How Jews claiming “Islamophobia” are helping embolden antisemitism

Melanie

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) provides an invaluable service translating material from Arabic into English and thus lifting the curtain on the deranged antisemitism coursing through the Arab and Muslim world. Recently its founder, Yigal Carmon, observed that this Jew-hatred had spread to America and Europe where it was turning into “really violent threats based on Islamic texts”. And yet, he added, the American Jewish community targeted by such attacks was silent. “Not a protest, no public activity, nothing at all. They are afraid to be thought of…