Rabbis Abraham Cooper and Yitzhok Adlerstein write Sept. 21, 2015 for The Jerusalem Post: “There is no wiggle-room concerning the consequences of a one-state solution. Combined with a right of return for millions of Palestinians living for decades in Muslim countries, Jews would quickly become a minority in their own land. The lone Jewish state would cease to exist, its inhabitants left as secure as the Yazidis or Christians in Iraq.”
It’s a shame they aren’t similarly dedicated to protecting the borders of their host nation, the United States of America. Instead, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is dedicated to making whites a minority in America and for the United States to cease to exist.
As Samuel Francis said: “The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that the civilization can be successfully transmitted to a different people.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed disappointment that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a bill that among other things makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requires local law enforcement to determine an individual’s legal status and arrest without warrant a person if there is “reasonable suspicion” that he or she is in the U.S. illegally.
“This isn’t about immigration, it’s about discrimination,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center. “We should not forget that we’re a nation of immigrants. This law makes no sense– it guarantees and stigmatizes people of color as second-class citizens and exposes them to intimidation and the use of racial profiling as a weapon of bias,” he concluded.
As part of its Tools for Tolerance® diversity programs, the Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and New York Tolerance Center in Manhattan include training law enforcement professionals across the country to address difficult questions and concerns over racial profiling.
* Link:
In response to the overwhelming concern and fear generated in France by far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and his National Front party’s victory in the first-round presidential vote, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is releasing its newest report, How Le Pen’s National Front Party Would Change France.
Compiled and written by Center researchers in France, the report touches on the changes the National Front would like to institute if it were to come to power. Topics addressed include immigration, health, crime and safety, and information.
* From Constructing Immigrant ‘Illegality’: Critiques, Experiences, and Responses:
Most of the work with and on behalf of unauthorized immigrants has been undertaken by Christian FBOs. However, some Jewish and Muslim organizations have also been involved. For instance, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to legalization and citizenship. Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, echoed the ADL’s call, drawing parallels between the Jewish history of immigration and the situation of unauthorized immigrants today.
“For over 350 years, our Jewish ancestors have immigrated to this country is search of a more hopeful life, a life free of religious persecution and economic hardship, a life where family members have a chance to be reunited and have a chance to contribute to their adopted home. Today’s immigrants come here for the same reasons as our Jewish ancestors… Who are we to say now that we are here, now that the courage and the hopes of our parents and grandparents in this nation of immigrants have been so richly vindicated, now the door must be closed?”
Jewish FBOs, including ADL, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the American Jewish Committee, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center have also been highly critical of SB1070 in Arizona. In the words of Rabbi Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, “This isn’t about immigration, it’s about discrimination. We must not forget that we’re a nation of immigrants. This law makes no sense — it guarantees and stigmatizes people of color as second-class citizens and exposes them to intimidation, and the use of racial profiling as a weapon of bias.”
It was not the kind of message a Harvard seminar expects to hear. Ethnic diversity causes a lot of problems, our guest speaker told us. It reduces interpersonal trust, civic engagement, and charitable giving. It causes us to disengage from society, like turtles shrinking into their shells, reducing our overall quality of life. The more diversity we experience in our lives, the less happy we are.
I came to Harvard to study public policy in the fall of 2004. All of the first-years like me had to take a special seminar class where we would discuss the philosophy of science and the nature of good research. The best class days featured established scholars who would come to present their own papers, which were real-life examples of good research.
The guest speaker who came to discuss diversity was political scientist Robert Putnam, who is something of a celebrity in academic circles. With the publication of his 1995 article “Bowling Alone,” Putnam helped bring the issues of social trust and civic participation to the forefront of social science. His article became a popular book, also called Bowling Alone, in 2000. Written for a general audience, the book chronicled the rapid decline in civic engagement that had taken place in the United States since 1950, and argued that communities without strong social ties are less happy and less successful. The article and the book garnered Putnam numerous media appearances and spawned reams of response articles in academia.
So how did Putnam come to conclude that ethnic diversity is so problematic? The answer begins with the notion of “social capital,” which Putnam defines in simple terms—“social networks and the associated norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness.” Social capital turns out to be an exceptionally valuable commodity. Building complex networks of friends and associates, trusting others to keep their word, and maintaining social norms and expectations all grease the wheels of business by enabling cooperation.
But the value of social capital goes well beyond economics. Many of the activities from which people draw the most deep and lasting satisfactions are stronger and more prevalent in areas with high social capital. People living in these places tend to have more friends, care more about their community, and participate more in civic causes. Where social capital is greater, Putnam says, “children grow up healthier, safer, and better educated; people live longer, happier lives; and democracy and the economy work better.”
After Bowling Alone, Putnam’s next step was to determine why some communities have more social capital than others. To find out, he helped organize a large nationwide survey of social capital indicators that sampled about 30,000 people from a broad array of cities, towns, and rural areas. By collecting demographic information about the individuals and the places they lived, Putnam hoped to gain insight into what makes for a trusting and neighborly community.
When he spoke to my class in 2004, Putnam had started to analyze the survey data, but he had not yet published any findings. He began by telling us about one result he encountered that was thoroughly upsetting to him—the more ethnically diverse a community is, the less social capital it possesses. When a person lives in a diverse community, he trusts everyone less, including those of his own ethnic group. In describing the behavior of people in diverse areas, Putnam told us to imagine turtles hiding in their shells.
