United Nations’ Particularism About Racism But Universalism On Anti-Semitism Reveals Its Jew Hatred

On March 23, 2023, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutteres published a message for the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, to be observed on March 25th. Gutteres focused on the “evil enterprise of enslavement [that] lasted for over 400 years… of suffering and barbarity that shows humanity at its worst.” He focused on the European slavery of Africans, stating that one can “draw a straight line from the centuries of colonial exploitation to the social and economic inequalities of today. And we can recognize the racist tropes popularized to rationalize the inhumanity of the slave trade in the white supremacist hate that is resurgent today.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during the High Level Segment of the 37th Session of the Human Rights Council. 26 February 2018.

While modern slavery exists to this day – much of it the enslavement of Black youths in Africa as soldiers and laborers for Black adults in Angola, Togo, Benin and Nigeria – the U.N. leader focused narrowly on “white supremacist hate” for Africans that was rooted in 400 years of the slave trade. The particularism of Remembrance is for Black victims of White racism, nothing else.

It is interesting to contrast this approach with Gutteres’ statement honoring the victims of the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany and its allies nearly completed the ethnic cleansing of Jews in Europe.

The title of the United Nations story about Holocaust Remembrance Day was “Honouring Holocaust victims, U.N. chief Guterres pledges to battle anti-Semitism, all forms of hatred.” The lead-in sentence continued that theme, that “the world has a duty to remember that the Holocaust was a systematic attempt to eliminate the Jewish people and so many others.“

A recap of Gutteres’ video remarks noted that “the Holocaust was the culmination of millennia of hatred, scapegoating and discrimination targeting the Jews, what we now call anti-Semitism, he emphasized, adding that tragically and contrary to the international community’s resolve, anti-Semitism continues to thrive. Moreover, the world is also witnessing a deeply troubling rise in extremism, xenophobia, racism and anti-Muslim hatred. Irrationality and intolerance are back, said the U.N. chief.” He further said “that as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I will be in the frontline of the battle against anti-Semitism and all other forms of hatred.“

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein also offered thoughts about the Holocaust that the “sadistic brutality of the atrocities inflicted by the Nazi regime on Jews, Roma, Slavs, persons with disabilities, political dissidents, homosexuals and others was nourished by layer upon layer of propaganda, falsifications and incitement to hatred.” He added that “is crucial to maintain respect for human rights, especially in respect of the right to life and wellbeing of all people regardless of their origin or ethnicity,… [and that] education must be at the core of all efforts to combat anti-Semitism, racism, and all forms of discrimination.”

The speakers were very holistic and all-encompassing as it related to the genocide of Jews.

While the United Nations solely focused on White slavery of Blacks and drew a line across centuries straight to racism against Blacks by Whites today, it opted for a completely different storyline for the slaughter of Jews. For the Holocaust of just some decades ago – as Survivors still scream in their sleep – the UN chose to include many non-Jewish people in the Remembrance, and attributed the barbarism to broad-based xenophobia which manifests itself in broad-based extremism like anti-Muslim hatred today.

It’s repulsive and shocking. And not shocking.

For the U.N., White racism against Blacks is systemic and persistent, while anti-Semitism is neither special nor unique; a subset of other forms of hatred which much also be addressed. The mantra is that over 1 billion Black people suffer persecution as a targeted minority, while the same cannot be said of 15 million Jews.

The divide in Victims of Preference is also prevalent in the United States. The leaders of congress took a knee for Black Lives Matter but would not condemn anti-Semitism unless coupled with other forms of discrimination like anti-Muslim hatred, to protect an anti-Semitic Muslim congresswoman.

Ilhan Omar and Nancy Pelosi (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

There is no more persecuted group in the world than the Jews. The hatred is so embedded in society, that world leaders do not call it out clearly, uniquely and unapologetically, because they have internalized the venom. The audience doesn’t want to hear it, and leaders don’t really want to talk much about it, as the straight line from the Holocaust to today runs through the radical jihadist Palestinian Arabs and anti-Zionists seeking to destroy the Jewish State.

In woke narrative, perpetrators can only by White Christian Males and victims are anyone else. So when society opts to define Jews as White (they are actually multi-racial), the Holocaust gets subtly reconfigured as a story of broad-based xenophobia which caught Jews alongside confirmed capital-V Victims by White Nazis. When Jews today are clearly targeted by non-Whites, the story is either ignored (like New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio and The New York Times) or the hatred is whitewashed because Jews deserved it as “interlopers” (as defined by Blacks in Jersey City) or “colonialists” (as concocted by anti-Zionists).

We are being reeducated by progressive powers that believe Jews are over-represented in power structures cloaked in their Whiteness. The woke become incensed when Jews claim victimhood, and spin the Holocaust into a crime against righteous Victims – homosexuals, the disabled and Muslims – which also caught Jews in the broad net.

The particular stand against racism is as correct as the universalistic stance against Jew-hatred-plus is wrong. Pathetic Holocaust Remembrances and watered down denouncements of anti-Semitism are facilitating the noxious evil, as the neo Nazis and jihadists know an opening when they see it.

Related articles:

Anti-Semitism Is Harder to Recognize Than Racism

The Holocaust and the Nakba

The Re-Introduction of the ‘Powerful’ Jew Smear

The United Nations Ignores Radical Muslim Violent Extremism and Terrorism

The Anti-Semitism In Anti-Zionism

A Unique Evil: Jenin And Holocaust Remembrance Day

The UN Cannot See Palestinian ‘Lies and Loathing’

Excerpt of Hamas Charter to Share with Your Elected Officials

Quantifying the Values of Gazans

What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?

It’s the Democracy, Stupid

UN Secretary General Guterres is Losing the Confidence of Decent People

80 Years After Wannsee Conference, Arab/Muslim Anti-Semitism Dominates

Hamas’s Willing Executioners

‘The Maiming of the Jew’

Bigots In Power, Checked And Unchecked

The Anti-Semitism In Anti-Zionism

Modern Zionism, which began at the end of the 19th century, has three basic components:

• That Jews are a people who originate in the land of Israel
• That Jews should have self-determination and sovereignty in their homeland
• That such homeland will be a safe haven from anti-Semitism and a base from which to combat it

Zionism is without question a Jewish movement, as seen by the three items above. Despite the clear connection, people have debated whether anti-Zionism is necessarily anti-Semitic. Below is a review of various aspects of anti-Zionism together with a consideration of whether it is rooted in Jew hatred.

1. Against the Premise of Zionism

The 19th and 20th century goal of Modern Zionism was to recreate a Jewish State in the Jewish homeland. While Jews had always prayed to, yearned for, moved to and lived in the land of Israel, the idea that Jews should have self-determination and sovereignty in the land was once viewed as far-fetched. Dominant and powerful religious groups believed that the ‘Wandering Jew’ without a home was their curse for killing Jesus thousands of years ago or not following the Islamic prophet today. A Jewish home countered embedded anti-Semitic beliefs in some religions.

There are many ways in which anti-Zionism has become shaped in people’s thinking due to the way Israel is covered in the media and the United Nations, which are deeply anti-Semitic.

2. Manifestations of Anti-Zionism

The anti-Semitism embedded in almost every manifestation of anti-Zionism is both obvious and odious.

Denial Of History

The assertion that Jews are “colonialists”, “interlopers” and “invaders” is a denial of Jews’ 3,300-year history in the holy land. Imagine denying that African-Americans were slaves in the United States or the history of the royal family in the United Kingdom. It is simultaneously absurd and outrageous.

The rejection of Israeli history is specifically targeted against Jews and not the one-quarter of Israelis who are not Jewish.

Denial Place To Live

All people should be allowed to live anywhere and everywhere. No one says that Hindus cannot live in Egypt or gays should be denied citizenship in Norway. So how does anyone have the temerity to say that Jews should banned from living in Gaza or Bethlehem, or think that such a ban should be supported because the local Arabs demand it?

Israeli Arabs are free to relocate from Jaffa to Jerusalem or Jericho without being labelled as illegal “settlers.” The parameters of defining illegal “settlers” is specifically about religion and ethnicity, not nationality.

Denial Right To Pray

Jews, and only Jews, are denied their right to pray at their holiest location. The world has branded the people who demand such basic human right as “extremists,” rather than the jihadists who threaten those Jews with violence.

The invective is attached by anti-Semites / anti-Zionists to any Jew from around the world ascending the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Meanwhile, no such call is made about Israeli Arabs who visit the site.

Refusal To Call Out Anti-Semitism

The refusal to accurately label the blatant anti-Semitism of anti-Zionists is also anti-Semitic.

The foundational Hamas Charter is a Jew-hating manifesto which combines Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the notorious forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and the worst possible reading of Jews in the Koran. And Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to a majority of parliament with such charter. Perhaps not surprisingly, as ADL polls show that 93% of Palestinian Arabs are anti-Semites, and Palestinians own polls show that a majority favor killing Israeli Jewish civilians.

This outrageous sentiment is not reported by the mainstream media or at the United Nations. All pretend that Arabs are merely “resorting” to violence because they are “frustrated” by the lack of a state, not that they seek a state free of Jews.

Calling Israelis “Nazis”

The disgusting smear of calling Israelis “Nazis” is specifically designed to paint Jews in the blood of their murderers. It attempts to brand Jews, the victims of the worst modern genocide of a government against its own citizens, as the new oppressors in the vehicle of a Jewish State. The invective is tied toward Israeli Jews and the Jewish State, not Israeli Arabs.

Charges of “Ethnic Cleansing” and “Genocide”

Anti-Zionists defend Palestinian Arabs who went to war with the Jews who had just survived a genocide in Europe in 1948-9. They defend the five Arab armies who ethnically-cleansed Jews from the western bank of the Jordan and eastern Jerusalem by never talking about it. They skip the disgraceful anti-Semitic Jordanian Citizenship Law of 1954 that gave Arabs citizens and denied giving it to any Jew.

While ignoring the actual ethnic cleansing of Jews, anti-Semites / anti-Zionists claim that Jews are ethnically cleansing Arabs when in fact, the Arab population under Israeli rule has jumped faster that the population of both Jews and Arabs in surrounding countries. Like the absurd charge of “Nazis”, anti-Semite / anti-Zionists are specifically targeting Jews in the attack.

Simultaneously Calling For Two States And Undermining The Jewish One

The call for “two states for two peoples” – for Arabs and Jews – goes back to the 1930s and 1940s. It specifically called for one of the countries to be a Jewish state.

But the United Nations has endorsed the Arab demand that millions of Arabs go to the Jewish State under a “right of return”, while also demanding that the Arab state be Jew-free. That’s 1.5 countries for Arabs and 0.5 for Jews, awarding local Arab sovereignty with purity, while stripping Jews of self-determination.

It’s a direct attack on Jews, not Israelis.

Clear Arab Anti-Semitism in Anti-Zionism

For decades, Palestinians and their sympathizers made no attempt to hide their contempt for global Jewry, not just Israeli Jews. Blowing up a Jewish Center in Argentina, shooting Jewish worshippers in a synagogue in Turkey, or separating Jewish passengers from everyone else during the hijacking of a plane to Entebbe, Uganda was an accepted agenda. The world understood and condemned the noxious anti-Semitism in the Muslim attacks on Jewish civilians around the world.

With the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, Palestinian terrorist groups and leadership pivoted their violent actions more locally to garner global support for their cause. The Arabs were no less anti-Semitic but their strategy demanded global pressure on Israel, because defeating the Jewish State militarily proved unachievable.

While the Arab terrorist attacks of the “Second Intifada” raged in Israel, the Muslim world re-launched the “Zionism is Racism” slur at the 2001 Durban Conference. It called upon the world to isolate, boycott, divest and sanction the Jewish State as a racist enterprise. It inverted their own anti-Semitism as being warranted, because the Jews are the real racists. No longer was the matter simply about two people fighting about a small stretch of land, but one of them – the Jews – were depicted as evil.

The Evil Spiral From Desiring A Palestinian State

It is understandable that many people want to see the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) have self-determination. While having a country is not an “inalienable right” the way the United Nations claims uniquely for Palestinian Arabs, the vast majority of Arabs already have self-determination via the Oslo Accords.

The anger at the failure of creating a Palestinian State is directed at the Jewish State, rather than the Arabs themselves who have refused peaceful coexistence for a century. The desire for a Palestinian State morphs into anti-Zionism by blaming the Jews for the plight of the Arabs. Once the Jews are blamed, they are accused globally and stripped of their basic human rights and dignity.

Global Manifestation of Anti-Semitism in Anti-Zionism

People around the world have ingested the anti-Semitism / Anti-Zionism. THEY come for the Jews actively and passively when they are angered by Israel. THEY have taken up physical / economic / moral arms against Jews in their hometowns, while the Arab jihadists wage war in the holy land.

In 2014, mobs in Germany and France came after local Jews in their synagogues during the Hamas War from Gaza. In 2021, anti-Zionists attacked Jews in the kosher restaurants in the United States. These attackers did not protest before an Israeli embassy, but came for local Jews because anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are fused as one.

3. Goal of Anti-Zionism

Israel is not a theoretical entity but a thriving democracy with millions of people. It is the most liberal country in the entire Middle East / North Africa (MENA) region, with rights for the 25% of non-Jews who live in the country.

Despite (or because of) the success of the Jewish State, anti-Zionists want to see it destroyed. They either want to strip the Jews of sovereignty or want them to be expelled from their homeland (like senior White House correspondent Helen Thomas urged).

Anti-Zionism is anchored in antagonism against Jews.

4. How To Break From Anti-Semitism In Anti-Zionism

Many anti-Semites become anti-Zionists as an extension of their Jew hatred, such as Neo Nazis. Many anti-Zionists are anti-Semites because of their anger at Jews coming to Israel and the lack of a Palestinian State.

While the Palestinian cause need not be anti-Semitic, the hatred has been encouraged by Palestinian leadership and echoed at the United Nations. The path to peaceful coexistence is to break the systemic Jew hatred that is currently embedded in the goal of creating a Palestinian state.

Some examples:

Allowing Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. The current blatantly anti-Jewish edict banning Jews from praying at their holiest location is outrageous. That the United States and the United Nations insist on the “status quo” requested by fanatical Muslims is pathetic and demonstrates the power of 1.8 billion Muslims and trillions of dollars of oil wealth have over the world. The U.S. and U.N. should work with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to reverse this anti-Semitic demand.

Reverse UNSC Resolution 2334. The idea that the United Nations passed a law that bans Jews – and only Jews – from living somewhere, let alone in their holiest city and homeland is disgusting. One would imagine that Nazis drafted the legislation. A Palestinian state can exist just fine with Jews living there, just as Israel has thrived with millions of non-Jews.

Amend the Palestinian refugee discussion. One cannot simultaneously argue for two states – one Jewish and the other Arab – while arguing for millions of Arabs to go to Israel and no Jews should be allowed in Palestine. The matter of refugees should clearly be articulated as to be settled only through financial payments, and should cover all descendants who lost homes in 1948, not just those living under the UNRWA umbrella.

Adopt the IHRA definition of Anti-Semitism. The IHRA definition has been adopted by thousands of municipalities and organizations. It lays out examples of anti-Zionism which are clearly anti-Semitism. It does not squash free speech as critics claim, but gives a template for people and organizations to understand what is hate speech.

Speak up for Jewish history and rights when discussing Israel. It is disgraceful that the media and United Nations undermines Jews and Israel consistently. For example, only calling the Temple Mount the al Aqsa Compound is an insult to Jews. Saying that the holy land is inherently and only Arab is an insult to Jews. Saying that Jews are not indigenous to their homeland is anti-Semitic. Equating the ‘Naqba’ to the Holocaust is disgusting and anti-Semitic. Demanding that Jerusalem maintain its ‘demographic character‘ achieved after Jordanian Arabs ethnically cleansed all Jews from the city is repulsive and reeks of Jew hatred.

Call out the anti-Semites hiding behind anti-Israel propaganda. When people like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) talk about Jews behind the curtains making money off of racism from Gaza to Detroit, she should not be excused because she is a Muslim woman. She, and others with similar attitudes, must be condemned by everyone, including other Democratic politicians.

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It is time to stop being polite on this subject and articulate clearly that anti-Zionists are anti-Semites, and should be called out and treated as such.

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The Inalienable Right of Jews to Pray on The Temple Mount

No One Mentions Actual Palestinians’ Sentiments

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For The NY Times, Antisemitism Exists Because the Alt-Right is Racist and Israel is Racist

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Will The UN Ever Support Israel Addressing Terrorism And Violent Extremism?

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres issued two rebukes about the slaughter of Jewish and Muslim worshipers at the end of January. While some words about the shooting of Jews outside a synagogue in Jerusalem and a bombing of a mosque in Pakistan were common, some stood in sharp contrast.

Issue	Israel Attack 1/27/23	Pakistan Attack 1/30/23
Condemnation	“strongly condemns”	“strongly condemns”
Condolence	“heartfelt condolences”	“heartfelt condolences”
Disgust	“particularly abhorrent that the attack occurred at a place of worship… there is never any excuse for acts of terrorism.”	“particularly abhorrent that the attack occurred at a place of worship. Freedom of religion or belief, including the ability to worship in peace and security, is a universal human right.”
Solidarity	NONE	“reiterates solidarity of the United Nations with the Government and people of Pakistan…”
Address Terrorism	“deeply worried about the current escalation of violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This is the moment to exercise the utmost restraint.”	“… in their efforts to address terrorism and violent extremism.”

Comments of the UN Secretary General in January 2023

Gutteres had enough brains to strongly condemn both heinous attacks and offer his condolences to the victims. But after that, his brain fell out.

The head of the U.N. understands that freedom of religion and ability to worship in peace is a fundamental human right… except for Jews for some reason. Guterres seemingly omitted saying it for Jews because he supports radical jihadists who demand that Jews be forbidden from praying at their holiest location on the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

He didn’t offer solidarity with the government and people of Israel as he did for Pakistan because he somehow has a misguided view that condemning Palestinian terrorism would be taking sides in the conflict, instead of taking a strong stand against terrorism. Offering meek words that “there is no excuse for terrorism” to Palestinians is outrageous. It suggests that the world is actually reading their genocidal manifesto and considering its validity, something never considered for any other terrorist.

And significantly, telling Pakistan (and the whole world) – OTHER THAN ISRAEL – that the U.N. stands with them in their effort to combat “terrorism and violent extremism,” empowers the anti-Semitic Palestinians who flatly reject coexistence with the Jewish State, to continue their extremist genocidal ways.

The U.N. must finally support Jews like any other people- with freedom to worship in peace, and to address the terrorism and violent extremism of their anti-Semitic violent neighbors.

Related articles:

Amid The Terror, The United Nations Once Again Protects Palestinians

The United Nations’ Incitement to Violence

What’s “Outrageous” for the United Nations

Gazans Support Killing Jewish Civilians

A Unique Evil: Jenin And Holocaust Remembrance Day

In November 2005, the United Nations decided to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the few surviving Jews from the Auschwitz Death Camp in Poland on January 27, 1945, as an International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that day, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the Holocaust is “a unique evil which cannot simply be consigned to the past and forgotten.”

The reality is that the lust for Jewish blood is very much a part of the present.

In December 2022, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) published its latest poll. It showed a dramatic spike in the number of West Bank Arabs in favor of killing Israeli Jews. The gap in Jewish blood lust between Gazans and West Bank Arabs was at the narrowest level since the Second Intifada / Two Percent War.

The results of the PCPSR poll were depressing, showing Palestinian support for terrorism against Israeli Jews and a rejection of a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. In particular, Arabs showed vigorous support for new terrorist groups emerging in Jenin which had committed a number of deadly attacks inside of Israel.

PCPSR poll December 2022

On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance, when the world pretends in understands #NeverAgain, the Israeli Defense Forces launched a raid to capture several terrorists in Jenin who had committed, and were planning to launch, terrorist attacks. The IDF was successful in eliminating several terrorists when the Arabs opened fire on the soldiers, and left Jenin without the loss of any IDF troops. Two West Bank civilians were killed according to reports from Arab media.

About twelve hours earlier, U.S. forces killed a top leader of the Islamic State and ten other fighters in a raid in Somalia, without the loss of any American troops. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that the terrorist “was responsible for fostering the growing presence of ISIS in Africa and for funding the group’s operations worldwide, including in Afghanistan.”

And just a few hours before the U.S. raid, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “terrorism remains a global scourge — an affront to humanity on every level. It affects people of all ages, cultures, religions and nationalities.” Indeed, as the U.S. and Israeli raids against terrorism highlighted.

But there’s an important difference.

Gutteres pointed out that terrorism “is a global scourge” which impacts all religions and nationalities. Lloyd Austin mentioned that the Islamic State was building a base “in Africa… worldwide, including in Afghanistan.”

But Palestinian terrorist groups are only coming for the Jews, and the majority of Palestinian society supports them. These terrorists are not a fringe radical group but represent a mainstream sentiment. That desire elected a Holocaust denier to the presidency in the last Palestinian election and will likely vote a terrorist as president in the next.

Many actively deny this reality. We pretend that targeting Jews was “consigned to the past” and the occasional terrorist attack in Israel is part of a “global scourge” which “finds its home in vacuums” as Gutteres opined.

It’s not. It’s grounded in a perverse anti-Semitism.

As we remember the 6 million Jews murdered by Nazis and their collaborators, let us not forget the “unique evil” was that Jews were systematically targeted for annihilation. So it was in Europe in the 1940’s, and remains so among Palestinian Arabs in the holy land today.

Related articles:

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The Lies Conflating the Holocaust and The Promised Land

The Progressive New World Order Flips The Holocaust From Anti-Semitism To Woke Fodder

Seeing the Holocaust Through Nakba Eyes

The Holocaust Will Not Be Colorized. The Holocaust Will Be Live.

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

Excerpt of Hamas Charter to Share with Your Elected Officials

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Related video:

The 2002 Massacres of Netanya and Jenin (music by Gorecki)

Liberals Blame Orthodox Jews’ Unfounded Fear For Loss of Congress

In New York’s 17th congressional district, Democratic incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney lost his seat to a Republican challenger, Mike Lawler. The pundits – and Maloney himself – offered their opinions as to why the five-term incumbent who spent 5.6 times more than his opponent, lost.

Their conclusion is disheartening, as it further underscores how liberals simply refuse to acknowledge the rampant anti-Semitism and attacks against Jews in society.

The New York Times asked the question directly in its headline “A Powerful N.Y. Democrat Was a Shoo-In for Re-election. What happened?” It offered some ideas including that Maloney opted for running in the wrong district after his historic contours were redrawn. The article wrote that it may have appeared like a safe choice in “diverse, left-leaning places like Peekskill and Ossining,” it neglected to consider the “significant population of right-leaning ultra-Orthodox Jews.“

Jews were the only ethnic group mentioned in the article. Not Hispanics, Blacks, Asians nor any others. Jews were the thorn in the side which helped lead to this congressman’s demise, and possibly Democratic control of the House of Representatives.

In another Times’ article, Maloney was asked why some of his constituents voted against him. He blamed media fear-mongering.

Maloney said that people in the suburbs of New York City are fed lies by conservative media about crime. “New York is home to the fiercest outlet in the News Corporation fear machine. In fairness to the governor, she and the rest of us have to contend with the hysteria of The New York Post and of Fox News… you have these suburban voters who are experiencing those messages coming out of New York City outlets, which were heavily focused on crime.”

The outgoing congressman said that the media cooked up “messages” about crime to manufacture “fear” and “hysteria.” The issue for this New York politician who’s been serving in congress for ten years was media spin, not actual crime.

Hate crimes against Jews – particularly in New York – is not a fiction concocted to make Democrats look weak on crime. It is an alarming reality, and the scourge is reported by all media outlets, whether CBSNews, CNN or Reuters.

Jews are being harassed, assaulted and murdered with increasing frequency and rather than acknowledge the serious problem, liberals are treating it like false news.

And if that’s not bad enough, they are now blaming Orthodox Jews for flipping congress and thereby hurting the Democratic agenda in the entire country. A little more fuel for liberal Jew hatred for the coming years.

Related articles:

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New York Times’ Small Anti-Semitism

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For The Sins Of 5782…

… for following directions from Waze with more obedience than any Torah commandments;

… for being upset that we don’t skip enough piyutim and selichot in synagogue;

… for coming to synagogue during the week wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt;

… for completing morning services at home in 360 seconds;

… for re-watching Key & Peele skits on my phone during breaks in davening;

for these sins and thoughts related to prayer services, please pardon us

… for the sin of cursing the gardener and coveting my neighbor’s lawn;

… for using COVID as an excuse for not going to shiva visits;

… for not killing lanterbugs on Shabbos;

… for sincerely asking for forgiveness and begrudgingly giving it;

… for taking the final aluminum tins from Amazing Savings right before the holidays;

… for not speaking up loudly against anti-Semites because they were Jews or from my political party;

… for embracing anti-Semites and their positions in the belief that I will be spared while fellow Jews are carted away;

… for not rallying behind institutions that fired anti-Zionist teachers;

… for not calling out anti-Semitism from other minorities, for fear of being called a racist;

… for not visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem;

… for believing that calls for violence are covered under free speech;

… for not doing enough to stop more anti-Semites from becoming members of Congress;

… for not protesting my government’s funding Palestinian agencies that still actively promote terrorism;

… for falsely believing that Tikkun Olam will stop the spread of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism;

… for screaming at ignoramuses like Whoopi Goldberg rather than educating them;

… for continuing to subscribe to anti-Semitic media which peddles the ‘powerful Jew’ myth;

… for deliberately weakening Jewish institutions with lawsuits and public declarations, rather than finding a way to improve them from within the community;

for these sins and thoughts related to community, please pardon us

… for allowing my children to attend colleges with rampant anti-Semitism;

… for visiting countries on vacation that fund anti-Israel NGOs and condemn Israel at the United Nations;

… for not listening to kids’ recommendation to invest alongside Pelosi, and for listening to them about investing in crypto;

… for calling my uncle a crazy racist and my niece a lazy woke-tard;

… for still not having a proper name for my in-laws, after many years of being married;

… for not calling my parents enough, even when they remind me of that fact constantly;

… for pretending I’m preoccupied when my spouse asks for something I’m not interested in;

… for telling my spouse to change attire; for not listening to spouse’s recommendation on attire; for listening to spouse’s recommendation on dress; for being late to events because of attire;

for these sins and thoughts related to family, please pardon us

… for the arrogance of believing that people read my postings including annoying Wordle scores;

… for believing Shabbos calories don’t count;

… for thinking I’m younger than my age, and not living each day fully;

… for internalizing that living my best life means selfish overindulgence;

… for trying to do too much; for trying to do too little;

… for not spending more time with family, friends, community and You;

for all these things, please pardon us

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For the Sins of 5780…

For the Sins of 5777 of…

The Economics Behind The Times’ Hasidic School Article

The New York Times printed a very long article about Hasidic schools in New York which took in roughly $1 billion of pubic money over the last few years, and claimed that they failed to provide a basic education on purpose. The Times mocked the terrible hiring practices at the schools and essentially urged the government to stop funding them until they improved their practices, as the paper released the article just two days before the New York State Board of Regents met on the matter.

The Board of Regents took notice and proposed tougher regulations aimed at these ultra Orthodox schools.

A deeper review of the Times article shows that the paper may have reached the wrong conclusion – that the schools require MORE money to succeed, not less.

The Times made its conclusion clear on the front page when it wrote “where other schools may be underperforming because of underfunding and mismanagement, these schools are different. They are failing by design.“

The article made it appear that the Jewish schools are actually OVERFUNDED, calling out “$1 Billion. Amount of government money collected in the past four years by Hasidic boys’ schools, even though they appear to be operating in violation of state laws guaranteeing students an adequate education.” It mocked the hiring practices of the schools, writing “Often, English teachers cannot speak the language fluently themselves. Many earn as little as $15 an hour. Some have been hired off Craigslist or ads on lamp posts.” The article added that the schools “mostly hire only Hasidic men as teachers, regardless of whether they know English. One former student said he once had a secular teacher who doubled as the school cook.“

The article made it appear that the schools are just pocketing the money, especially as it highlighted that one of the Hasidic school networks “controlled over $500 million in assets,” and showed a picture with accompanying text that one school building “takes up a city block.“

But a deeper dive of these observations paints the opposite picture.

Small Subsidies Per Yeshiva Child

The $1 billion sounds like a huge headline figure going out to failing private schools. The accompanying Times’ commentary spelling out that the sum covers four years is perhaps lost in the momentary shock. It equates to roughly $250 million per year used to support 50,000 boys, or roughly $5,000 per student per year. That figure covers transportation, food, child care and special ed classes, in addition to general education.

By way of comparison, New York City has an annual budget of $38 billion for 919,000 students (a steadily declining number that was over 1 million just two years ago). That’s over $41,000 per student. It’s a gap of more than $36,000 per child compared to yeshiva boys.

The article hinted about this enormous gap in a few spots without sharing the math.

It first attributed the basic fact as a defense offered by the Hasidic schools, making the small subsidy seem biased: “They [the Hasidic schools] denied some of the Times findings,… that the schools receive far less taxpayer money per pupil than public schools do.” The qualified speaker tainted the observation.

Only on the fourth page of the Times’ article did the Times state two critical facts clearly: “Hasidic boy’s yeshivas receive far less per pupil than public schools, and they charge tuition.” Public school students get more than 8 times the funding as these yeshiva boys, as detailed above. The fact that these private schools charge tuition needs further elaboration as well.

Enormous Yeshiva Tuition Bills Require Penny Pinching

The boys’ schools don’t operate on a budget of $5,000 per student. Parents pay tuition as noted by the Times.

These ultra Orthodox families typically have very large families. For example, on the fifth page of the article, the Times mentioned a family with six children. It also mentioned Naftuli Moser who started an advocacy group to improve secular education in yeshivas. The Times did not write that Moser is one of 17 children.

Consider the tuition bills for these families. If the yeshivas charged like the public schools, six children with a funding gap of $36,000 each would mean a tuition bill of $216,000 per year for the family. For Moser’s family, the annual tuition bill would be $612,000!

Needless to say, these schools cannot operate with the generosity afforded to public school teachers backed by powerful teacher unions. The yeshivas need to hire teachers on a budget to match the incomes of these large Hasidic families. The overall school budget is a fraction of the $41,000 spent per pupil in public schools. The schools also make accommodations for parents who cannot afford full tuition for all of their kids, by having the fathers teach at the school, accounting for Yiddish-speakers teaching English as featured in the article.

And yes, teachers do double-duty, including teaching and acting as the school chef. It keeps the school budgets down and the tuitions more affordable.

Wealth Amidst The Poverty

The Times article made the Hasidic community appear to be sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars and then taking a billion dollars from the government. Much of the wealth in the Hasidic community revolves around real estate holdings in Brooklyn. Educating nearly 100,000 boys and girls – roughly 1/10th the size of New York City’s public school students – requires many buildings. The dense communities where the Hasidim live drive up demand and therefore the prices.

This is a community whose wealth – to the extent there is some – is mostly illiquid. It is in the very homes and schools they live in every day.

Possible Solutions

Both the Times’ opening conclusion that Hasidic schools are neither underfunded nor mismanaged, and the timing of the article’s release before the Board of Regents meeting, had the desired impact of the city threatening to cut funding to the schools. As reviewed above, that is ill advised. Why take away transportation, food and other subsidies to a poor community already struggling?

More money needs to flow into the Hasidic school system, not less. That does not mean simply writing checks without accountability. The system needs to pivot to address the plain facts that yeshiva students are growing rapidly and now account for almost 10% of New York City students, as the public schools continue to shrink.

A few suggestions:

Bilingual Yiddish schools. New York City has 545 bilingual schools. They are mostly in Spanish, but also include French, Russian, Chinese, Bengali and Haitian-Creole. It is time to invest in distinct Yiddish schools in coordination with the Hasidic community. The schools would need to be segregated by gender and timed to allow for religious private school either in the morning or afternoon, switching off for different groups in the area to fully utilize the facilities.

Employ/ Pay Secular Teachers Directly. For those parents that do not want to use bilingual Yiddish schools, the city should pay for qualified secular teachers directly. As public school teachers are being retired due to the shrinking public school student body, reassign the teachers to teach secular subjects in these yeshivas.

Should the community fail to adopt these investments in secular education, punitive measures should be considered. However, immediately jumping to threaten poor Hasidic schools that get minimal funding is counterproductive and mean-spirited.

If we truly want all students to be educated and to succeed, we need to examine the situation honestly and invest appropriately. The New York Times and Board of Regents seemingly have chosen the opposite path, and acted abusively to a large impoverished minority. If it is simply a coincidence that these secular bodies opted to target ultra Orthodox Jews, I leave it to each reader to consider.

Related articles:

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Why Does the New York Times Delete Stories of Attacks on Jews?

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The Re-Introduction of the ‘Powerful’ Jew Smear

Israeli-German Jews Find Empathy For Descendants of Nazis

To spend time in Berlin, Germany is to be surrounded by echoes of the Holocaust. The silhouettes of Jewish victims can be seen in the memorials of concrete coffins emerging from the ground, brass plaques cemented into the sidewalks, sculptures of men, women and children atop pedestals, and the anti-Semitic edicts drawn on placards hoisted on street poles.

Berlin monument for German non-Jewish women seeking to save their Jewish husbands

Berlin monument for Jewish women and children in front of destroyed Jewish cemetery

Statues in Berlin, Germany commemorating the Holocaust

The small community of Israeli Jews who moved to the epicenter of the Jewish genocide since World War II have made a peculiar peace with this past. Some came when the city was divided in two and settled in West Berlin, and others are recent arrivals, former Ukrainians and Russians who prefer Eastern Europe to the Middle East.

They all know the city’s history and they know the oddity that they represent.

Speaking to these Israeli Jews about their relationships with German neighbors is a course of curiosity and incredulity. They offer that perhaps as many as 20% of Germans today are Nazi sympathizers much like their grandparents, and a similar percentage probably don’t think about the past at all. The Israeli-German residents estimate that most non-Jewish Germans are embarrassed about their legacy but don’t want to hate their own flesh-and-blood. Such Germans are left in an awkward situation when they talk with Jews: the unsympathetic descendants of murderers are engaged with the much more sympathetic descendants of their victims, creating an unbalanced state.

The Jewish Berliners dislike the dynamic, and argue that today’s generation of Germans cannot be held responsible for the sins of the past. They argue that today’s Germans have atoned as best they could through memorials and compensation to survivors. These Jews offer that they bemoan the preferred position they have in society as children of victims; they do not want such inherited status. Instead, they seek their righteous rank earned from sympathizing with the challenging constellation that places today’s Germans alongside Jews. The Jews and Germans are equally inheritors of the past, no more, no less.

Today in Berlin, I heard Jews talk about two different Children of the Holocaust. While I have long been familiar with children of Survivors like myself, it was shocking to hear some Jews relate to the grandchildren of Nazis as victims as well, albeit of familial reputational stain rather than of genocide. Perhaps that is how these new German Jews live surrounded by Jewish and Nazi ghosts: imagining that today’s Germans live with those same ghosts as well.

Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, continues below ground with stories of Jewish families destroyed by the Nazis. It sits one block from the Brandenburg Gate, a monument used by Germans to celebrate their power and freedom.

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Biden Enables Anti-Semitism On College Campuses

The terrible news seems to come out daily: anti-Semitism on the rise in cities and towns across the country. One of the worst locations is college campuses, where the government has the power to reduce the scourge, and refuses to do so.

Beyond The US And Beyond This Year

To be clear, the problem is not just local and not only recent.

In March 2022, United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “I think that our universities, for far too long, have been tolerant of casual or indeed systemic anti-Semitism… it’s important that we have an anti-Semitism task force devoted to rooting out anti-Semitism in education,” calling out the Jew hatred in universities.

US President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13899—Combating Anti-Semitism in December 2019 to address the problem, stating “my Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on university and college campuses.”

The United States government was trying to tackle the issue in November 2017 when it held a hearing to consider interpreting Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect Jewish students and other religious minorities from discrimination. At that time, Rabbi Cooper, Associate Dean, Director Global Social Action Agenda, Simon Wiesenthal Center called out for the government to help combat the hatred, arguing that “The failure of schools and Federal Government to protect Jewish students on campus from harassment is one of the most pressing issues for the American Jewish Community.”

But educational institutions and the government are backing away from providing protections to Jewish students on campus.

Failure of Leadership

The City University of New York (CUNY) has seen an enormous spike in anti-Semitic incidents. To combat the menace, over 100 non-profit institutions wrote a letter on June 28, 2022 to the NYC Council Committee on Higher Education to address “the alarming rise of antisemitism on campuses across the country, and at CUNY in particular.” After being postponed once, the committee finally met to address this serious issue, but CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez did not attend. Brooklyn Councilwoman Inna Vernikov was angered at the chancellor’s absence and said “last night, in a very cowardly fashion, the chancellor said he won’t appear. Instead he sent a lawyer to represent him. What a sham, what an insult to the Jewish community of New York.“

President Biden is similarly aware of the scourge of anti-Semitism on campuses and opted to delay action until after mid-term elections.

President Biden is aware of the scourge of anti-Semitism on campuses and opted to delay action until after mid-term elections.

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Shortly after Biden took office in February 2021, Kara McDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, embraced the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. She said “we must educate ourselves and our communities to recognize antisemitism in its many forms, so that we can call hate by its proper name and take effective action. That is why the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, with its real-world examples, is such an invaluable tool.”

It was the logical and appropriate time for Biden to follow-through on Trump’s EO 13899 and the federal government’s efforts to apply the IHRA definition to Title VI. Title VI “prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any program or activity that receives Federal funds or other Federal financial assistance.” As most colleges receive federal funds and would collapse without them, and the fact that Jews do not fall neatly into “race, color or national origin,” Jews were counting on inclusion in the Title VI clause together with the working definition of anti-Semitism.

But Biden decided to postpone a decision on the Title VI matter until December 2022, after mid-term elections.

Biden Fears the Far-Left Anti-Zionists

While Biden was willing to champion the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, he fears members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) within his party, and the threat that they will primary incumbent party centrists out of office. The IHRA definition has several references to Israel including “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel“, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” and “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” These anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic statements often come from the mouths of Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Cori Bush (D-MO), members of the DSA. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY), a leading shrill voice of the DSA, has stated plainly that her squad will come after centrists if the Democratic leadership doesn’t bend to their extremist policy demands, including lambasting Israel. Biden doesn’t want to anger the squad and risk his party’s slim majority.

President Biden with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (left) and Rep. Debbie Dingell, May 2021. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

While studies have shown that “much of the antisemitic activity [on college campuses] was perpetrated by anti-Zionist students and student groups” at schools with “faculty academic boycotters,” and the federal government has a clear pathway to clamp down on the Jew hatred, President Biden has chosen to place party politics ahead of the safety of the young adults of the most persecuted minority in America.

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Jews In Jerusalem Still Fighting For ‘Social Justice’

Social justice is a concept that has been advanced by left-wing Americans into mainstream conversation. The idea covers a number of principles:

• Access
• Human rights
• Participation
• Equity
• Diversity

The Jews in Jerusalem are slowly advancing in their movement on each of these principles, however, systemic anti-Semitism at the United Nations and for many Arab Muslim nations, has slowed progress.

Access

Despite the facts that only Jews consider Jerusalem as its holiest location and uniquely made the city its capital, Arab Muslim nations ethnically-cleansed the Old City of Jerusalem of its Jews in the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli war. Transjordan illegally annexed the eastern part of the city including the Old City and the west bank of the Jordan River, and subsequently denied any Jew the ability to visit their holiest sites.

Jordan attacked Israel again in 1967 but lost the ‘West Bank’ and eastern Jerusalem to Israel. While Israel once again allowed Jews to live and visit their holiest city, the Jordanian Waqf was given permission by Israel to administer the Jewish Temple Mount, and limits the time and number of Jews who can visit.

Human Rights

Not long after Jordan annexed lands west of the Jordan River in a move not recognized by almost every country in the world, it passed a citizenship law specifically excluding Jews in article 3. Now under Israeli rule, the Jews of Jerusalem – as well as Arabs – are afforded citizenship in a reversal to Jordan’s anti-Semitic law.

Jordan still enforces its ban on Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, a flagrant violation of the basic human rights of Jews. Remarkably, the world stays mum on the subject, fearing radical Islamic violence.

Participation

The Jews in Jerusalem are marginalized by the United Nations and much of the world. The UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334 which stated that “Israelis” could not move to eastern Jerusalem. The anti-Zionists call Jews who live and visit ‘settlers’, even if they are not Israeli, and do not use the label for Israeli Arabs who do the same, clearly demonstrating the anti-Jewish nature of the smear.

The UN has set up distinct agencies, committees and inquiries uniquely for the Jewish State and does not afford Israel an opportunity to participate on the same basis as others in a forum stacked against it.

As noted above, the administration of the Temple Mount which holds the al Aqsa mosque is administered solely by Arab Muslims of the Jordanian waqf. Such formulation does not allow Jews to participate in the administration of their holiest site, and has led to their being completely marginalized.

Equity / Restorative Justice

There has been some measure of restorative justice for Jews, in facilitating the migration of Jews back to their ancestral homeland over the past hundred years. Germany has paid the state compensation for its actions in the Holocaust. The United States has invested in the fledgling state and facilitated its ascendency out of a third world emerging state to a thriving liberal democracy. The most persecuted people who faced a genocide have established a safe haven.

But evil still lurks. The Islamic Republic of Iran has stated its desire to destroy Israel. It has several terrorist proxies abutting the Jewish State including Hamas and Hezbollah which have thousands of missiles directed at it. The world is debating how to handle the leading state sponsor of terrorism’s quest for nuclear weapons, even though the answer is obvious to any toddler.

In relation to Jerusalem, the world has done the opposite of restorative justice. It did – and still does not – facilitate and recognize Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem. Israel had to reunite the city on its own in a defensive battle. It rebuilds the synagogues (like the Hurva) that Jordan destroyed in the face of global condemnation.

The Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, shortly after its re-opening in March 2010 (photo: First One Through)

Diversity

Israel’s neighbors like Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Iraq and others, are each over 90% Muslim. In contrast, Israel is only 73.9% Jewish and has over 26% of the population from a variety of religions including Muslims, Christians, Druze, Baha’i, Samaritans and others.

Israel’s diversity is seen in its schools and hospitals. The signs in the country are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Its parliament and Supreme Court have people of different religions, ethnic backgrounds, genders and orientation. All of those dynamics are lacking in the other countries of the Middle East.

Many of those same countries that lack diversity attack Israel economically, politically and militarily. They deny the history of the Jews, their rights and any acceptance of the Jewish State. They have stood against ‘normalizing’ the Jewish State in any manner in an aggressive campaign of ‘three denials.‘ These efforts are most pronounced regarding Israel’s capital of Jerusalem, which they seek to revert back to the Arab-only, Jew-free situation they enforced in the eastern half from 1949 to 1967.

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Regarding the principles of access, human rights, participation, equity and diversity, Israel stands as a beacon in the Middle East. However, the country still faces many obstacles, mostly from the biased United Nations and at the Jewish Temple Mount. Hopefully those committed to social justice will engage in the hard work to end the systemic anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamic privilege, religious persecution and isolation of the indigenous Jewish people in their ancient homeland and in their holy capital city of Jerusalem.

Related articles:

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East

The Jews of Jerusalem In Situ

Zionism is Justice

Arabs in Jerusalem

Considering Israel’s Model for Arabs Applied to Jews in a Palestinian State

Israel’s Peers and Neighbors

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism