Why Vladimir Putin Embraces Jews — But Not Gays

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Forward: “We, all of us, will not put up with attempts to legitimize homosexual wedding,” Samoilenko boomed. “Wedlock between men and women assures the continuation of life and we’re duty-bound to resist dangerous ugliness like homosexuality and promiscuity. I know I speak for my Jewish and Muslim colleagues, too.”
None of the dozens of dignitaries present at the roundtable disputed this assertion, which came just minutes after Samoilenko had reassured his listeners that persecution of minorities in Russia was a thing of the past. But at least one of the prominent rabbis, David Rosen, later distanced himself from Samoilenko’s comments.
“I don’t share it,” Rosen, a former chief rabbi of Ireland and the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious affairs, said of Samoilenko’s concern about homosexuality. “I don’t see alternative lifestyles as a threat to my own religion.”
To Rosen, a professional builder of bridges between Jews and other faith groups, Samoilenko’s anti-gay tirade was a symptom of how many Christians and Muslims fear phenomena they see as subversive. Jews, he said, feel less threatened because Judaism seldom has power structures to preserve. He called this openness “the privilege of powerlessness.”
As an Orthodox rabbi, Rosen would not officiate at a gay wedding any more than Samoilenko would, but he feels no need to fulminate about it, he explained…

Russian Jewry has experienced a golden age under Putin. From the maritime border with Japan to the land border with Finland, dozens of synagogues in Russia have been returned to communities that, with help from Chabad rabbis, began to flourish and open hundreds of kindergartens, schools and jewish community centers.
Kazan is a case in point. Home to 10,000 Jews, it last week hosted its first Limmud Jewish learning conference, which local volunteers set up for 450 participants, with help from Limmud FSU. In 2012, the city saw its first Jewish music festival – an annual event in which klezmer bands from across the world perform in open-air venues before Rosh Hashanah.
The Kremlin has not been shy about leveraging this cultural revival, as the chief rabbi calls it, in the battle for public opinion – including in the West. And the constant expansion of RT — the huge television network the Russian government set up in 2005 — to additional languages and channel packages speaks volumes of Putin’s willingness to invest in public relations abroad.

Posted in Homosexuality, Jews, Russia | Comments Off on Why Vladimir Putin Embraces Jews — But Not Gays

NYT: Netanyahu Makes Quick Pivot From Loss on Iran Deal

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Maybe his dramatic opposition to the deal was a deal-making ploy?

Many Jewish organizations such as AIPAC have fundraised for millions by opposing the deal.

NYTIMES.com: JERUSALEM — In the week since it became clear that Congress would not block the Iranian nuclear deal he loathes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has largely toned down his rhetoric on the issue and pivoted to others.

He did not utter the name of his nation’s nemesis in a pre-New Year’s toast to his office and the national security council on Monday, nor at the induction of his new military secretary on Tuesday. In a brief public statement before meeting with his British counterpart in London on Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu did mention Iran — but not in the usual context of its nuclear program posing an existential threat to Israel, only as a leader of “militant Shiites.”

And even that was ticked off between two other priorities: Mr. Netanyahu reiterated his readiness to restart negotiations with the Palestinians (though he rejects their conditions for doing so) and he boasted of Israeli innovation, “especially in cybersecurity.”

David Horovitz, the editor of The Times of Israel news site, observed, “He is not particularly interested in playing up the fact that a deal he bitterly opposed is going through.” Mr. Horovitz added, “Although he’s not saying that the cause is lost, if he hammers away at the same level, he reminds everybody that it’s been lost.”

FORWARD.com: The second major battle took place in 1991, when president George H. W. Bush conditioned a $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel on freezing building in West Bank settlements. The Israeli government, led by Yitzhak Shamir, refused, and AIPAC took to Congress to fight against the condition. This led Bush to famously describe himself as “one lonely little guy” fighting the powerful pro-Israel lobby. AIPAC lost this battle, too, but once again suffered no adverse consequence.
Fundraising, in fact, leaped upward after each incident, as it did following the 2007 publication of a book by prominent political scientists Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer that critically depicted the pro-Israel lobby. Fundraising also increased after the arrest of two of the group’s top lobbyists on espionage charges that were later dropped, and following the formation of AIPAC’s dovish rival, J Street.
AIPAC now has an enormous $110 million budget and has launched a five-year plan to double it.
Insiders foresee no financial hit for AIPAC. Those opposed to the deal, an official with a major Jewish organization said, will appreciate the effort and keep on supporting the lobby, and those undecided will also likely maintain their support. “They’re not going to go over to J Street,” the official said, explaining that for the centrist and hawkish pro-Israel crowd, AIPAC is the only option.
A bigger issue is the damage, if any, to the lobby’s political clout. But if history offers any clue about the future, the lobby will emerge unscathed, mainly because of the administration’s reluctance to take revenge on a still formidable organization.

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Who is Behind Canary Mission Website Targeting Pro-BDS Activists?

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Tangling with the Jews is very bad for your career in America.

Forward.com: A sshadowy website that posts dossiers on pro-Palestinian student activists has grown rapidly in recent months, while continuing to zealously guard the identity of its own staff and backers.
Since a Forward report drew international attention to the Canary Mission this past May, the number of students and other pro-Palestinian activists on whom it has posted lengthy dossiers had jumped to 140 from slightly less than 50. The site includes photographs, and encourages employers to shun the students profiled on its pages.

Posted in BDS, Jews | Comments Off on Who is Behind Canary Mission Website Targeting Pro-BDS Activists?

Deborah Lipstadt: 4 Reasons We Should Think Before Acting Rashly on Migrant Crisis

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Deborah Lipstadt writes: “Years ago I began my exploration into the Holocaust by studying the American response. I was appalled by the deep-seated hostility American officials and bureaucrats showed toward Jewish immigrants. They erected, in the words of historian David Wyman, “paper walls” to keep out the foreigners. Jews were turned away simply and solely because they were Jews, even when that meant they would be sent to concentration camps. Seeing Aylan’s lifeless body washed up on a beach, who among us does not wonder: Is history repeating itself?”

A solid majority of American citizens for more than 150 years have been against more immigration but rarely have they had an opportunity for their views to be expressed in legislation. Why did America have an obligation to take in Jews or any other group? During the 1930s, America had massive unemployment and about 90% of the country was solidly against taking in immigrants.

It’s not the responsibility of Gentile nations to take in Jews or any other immigrants. It is their responsibility to act in their self-interest to perpetuate their culture, civilization and genes. It is up to Jews and other immigrants to prove that they will be more of a blessing than a curse to their host nations.

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Lisa Goldman: How Jewish Skepticism on Refugees Boils Down to Double Standards

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

For more than 150 years, a solid majority of Americans have been against further immigration, but with few exceptions, their wishes have been denied.

The critiques that the new immigrants were inferior in their citizenship to the type of people who founded the United States were accurate.

Lisa Goldman responds to Deborah Lipstadt: “The great wave of Jews from Eastern Europe that came over in steerage in the 1880s, 1890s and first decade of the 20th century did not come with passports. They did not speak English. They were economic migrants — pogroms were not the main push factor, as prominent Jewish historians like Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi have shown in their research. They immigrated under America’s open door policy. And they did not know from democracy. A few of them became mobsters, but the vast majority became productive and proud citizens within one generation.”

A million of these Jews became communists and socialists. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe pushed American politics and culture to the left and changed the country from 90% white to racially mixed by pushing for non-white immigration.

Ashkenazi Jews have an average IQ somewhere between 108-120. Syrians have an average IQ of 83. Arabs have an average IQ of 85. That’s a good predictor of which group will become productive citizens and which group will constitute a drain.

Lisa Goldman: “But the bottom line is that every human being has the right to live in a place that is safe and allows them to earn enough for food, shelter and clothing.”

Who says? No country has the right to exist. That depends on its own power and will and capability. Similarly, no person has the automatic right to food, shelter and clothing. These privileges are the fruits of a productive high IQ society. When a country has an average IQ over 96, its citizens tend to be fed, clothed and housed. When a country has a lower average IQ, it is more troubled.

Lisa Goldman: “Since the establishment of the E.U. and the end of the Cold War, millions of Europeans have migrated around the continent — many of them born and raised in countries that have no tradition of democracy. But no one is asking if the 78,000 Poles living in Sweden or the 79,000 Hungarians living in England can adapt to the values of their new country. Perhaps this question is asked more frequently of brown people in general and of Muslims specifically.”

We have no evidence that Muslims can assimilate en masse to Western norms. Ninety percent of recent Middle Eastern refugees in America are on welfare.

Comment on Forward.com: “Goldman’s analogy with turning away Jews during the Holocaust doesn’t fly. There are a multitude of Muslim states in the region that are available to accept Muslims. There
was not a Jewish state to accept Jews.
Had a Jewish state existed at the time, European Jews would have had
where to go. Big difference as to what faces Muslims today and what
faced Jews during the Holocaust.”

Posted in Immigration, Islam | Comments Off on Lisa Goldman: How Jewish Skepticism on Refugees Boils Down to Double Standards

French Jews Plan Coordinated Push To Help Syrian Refugees

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Helping illegal immigrants means hurting the host countries.

The nicer people in 90035 are to the homeless, the more homeless move to 90035.

The zip code 90035 would be better off without homeless and the West would be better off without more Islamic immigration.

JTA:

French Jewish groups, including Western Europe’s largest charity for Jews, signed a declaration of principles for coordinated efforts to provide relief for Syrian refugees.
The declaration, initiated by French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia and published Thursday, states each of the six co-signatory groups will “act to accompany the refugees, each according to its competences and abilities and with its traditional partners,” but “especially in administrative and medical matters.”
In recent weeks, tens of thousands of migrants, including refugees, have entered the European Union, where a strong public reaction developed to the publication of images of the migrants’ plight and the loss of life among refugees who drowned or suffocated while trying to make it across the border.
Many are refugees from the civil war in Syria. Others come from failed or impoverished countries in the Middle East and Africa.
The signatories to Korsia’s declaration — including the Fonds Social Juif Unifie, which has an annual budget of roughly $10 million and the Union of Jewish Students of France, or UEJF — wrote that their initiative was “guided by the notion of tikkun olam – repairing the world – in Jewish philosophy and out of awareness of a moral struggle occurring in a society too characterized, at times, by individualism.”
CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, did not sign Korsia’s declaration but has none the less given it its blessing, according to Korsia’s office.
The coalition of organizations will soon begin collecting and distributing clothes for young children among the migrants, read the statement, which also praised France’s decision to take in 24,000 refugees.
In neighboring Belgium, the left-leaning CCLJ Jewish cultural group last month also called on European governments to act “generously,” but warned against a possible increase in anti-Semitic violence because of the arrival of migrants from the Middle East, who today across Western Europe are believed to be behind most anti-Semitic violence.
The Central Jewish Organization of Dutch Jews made a similar statement.

There’s also not a word in the article about how these immigrants are going to help their host countries.

Posted in Immigration, Islam, Jews | Comments Off on French Jews Plan Coordinated Push To Help Syrian Refugees

MORE THAN 90 PERCENT OF MIDDLE EASTERN REFUGEES ON FOOD STAMPS

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Lisa Schiffren writes on FB: “Why do we want more uneducated, deeply hostile dependents? We have enough troubles of our own, an economy that doesn’t create jobs, and our 30 million hispanic illegals — who may be unproductive, but don’t actually want to kill us and destroy our culture because their God tells them to. Bringing in 10,000 Syrians of indeterminate background is suicidal. Send them to Saudi Arabia. Or Kuwait, Qatar or Oman.”

Heshy Fried posts: “Haven’t really formulated an opinion on the Syrian refuge thing, but the comments on the Jewish news sites all make me think of that time when America didn’t want to take Jewish refuges during the holocaust. “I sure as hell don’t want em coming here” was probably the same thing people said in the 40s about the Jews.”

Breitbart: More than 90 percent of recent refugees from Middle Eastern nations are on food stamps and nearly 70 percent receive cash assistance, according to government data.

According to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) data highlighted by the immigration subcommittee staff of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)80%
— chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest — in FY 2013, 91.4 percent of Middle Eastern refugees (accepted to the U.S. between 2008-2013) received food stamps, 73.1 percent were on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance and 68.3 percent were on cash welfare.

Middle Eastern refugees used a number of other assistance programs at slightly lower rates. For example, 36.7 percent received Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), 32.1 percent received Supplemental Security Income (SSI), 19.7 percent lived in public housing, 17.3 percent were on General Assistance (GA), and 10.9 percent received Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA).

The high welfare rates among Middle Eastern refugees comes as the Obama administration considers increasing the number of refugees — who are immediately eligible for public benefits — to the U.S., particularly Syrian refugees.

ORR defines refugees and asylees from the “Middle East” as being from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen.

Sessions’ staff notes that that from FY 2008 to FY 2013 the U.S. admitted 115,617 refugees from the Middle East and granted another 10,026 asylum. Additionally the U.S. granted green cards to 308,805 immigrants from those Middle Eastern countries identified by ORR as refugee nations, making them Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) eligible to apply for citizenship in five years and petition to have family members come to the U.S.

As of 2013, Sessions’ staff notes, the top ten countries for refugee admission to the U.S. were Iraq, Burma, Bhutan, Somalia, Cuba, Iran, Congo, Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.

“More broadly, concerning all immigration, the Migration Policy Institute notes that the U.S. has taken in ‘about 20 percent of the world’s international migrants, even as it represents less than 5 percent of the global population,’ and that 1 in 4 U.S. residents is now either an immigrant or born to immigrant parents,” Sessions staff highlights, noting that the Census is projecting that another 14 million immigrants will come to the U.S. by 2025.

Posted in Immigration | Comments Off on MORE THAN 90 PERCENT OF MIDDLE EASTERN REFUGEES ON FOOD STAMPS

The Israeli Mind

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Alon Gratch writes March 1, 2015:

In the aftermath of World War II, Israeli foreign policy rested on the idea that if you want to make history, you must forget history. This idea allowed the government to negotiate with Germany over diplomatic relations and financial restitution on the basis of self-interest rather than emotions. It resulted in a tremendous economic growth and greater security for the fledgling state.

Holocaust privatization

But then came the Adolf Eichmann trial of 1961, bringing home to all Israelis the horrific personal stories of the survivors and ushering in what historian Hanna Yablonka called “the privatization of the Holocaust.” Starting then, Israel gradually embraced the opposite idea, the notion that those who are unwilling to remember history are doomed to repeat it, as the organizing principle of its foreign policy.

This also led to greater prosperity and security for Israel.

But whereas the earlier philosophy was based on Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s practical vision and the cold calculus of a few professional policymakers, the latter was based on a set of powerful emotions experienced by the whole nation. Due to the language barrier and the general intensity and vitality of life in Israel, foreign observers often fail to grasp the extent to which the trauma of the Holocaust has penetrated every aspect of Israeli life.

As a result of decades of intensive educational programs, the Holocaust has become the central building block of the national identity of many Israelis. A 1992 study among university students studying to become teachers found that close to 80% identified with the statement, “We are all Holocaust survivors.” And in present-day Israel, hardly a day goes by without some mention of Holocaust in the media.

Underlying this national preoccupation are the twin emotions of anxiety and rage, along with the refusal or inability to tolerate any feelings of helplessness. “Never again will Jews go like lambs to the slaughter” is a phrase inculcated in the mind of every Israeli child.

Psychological burden

More than anything else, it is this psychological burden that will determine Israeli reaction to the West’s negotiations with Iran.

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WHY ISRAEL’S ELECTIONS WERE REALLY ABOUT 1967

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Alon Gratch writes March 31, 2015:

At my son’s bar mitzvah, which took place a few years ago at a Conservative synagogue outside New York City, the rabbi delivered a sermon on the Six Day War, declaring it “Israel’s finest hour.” As he spoke, my brother, an Israeli businessman in his fifties, stood up and yelled, “Rabbi, I object to these statements.”

As the rabbi tried to talk him down, my wife—a gracious, well-mannered American—turned to my brother and said, “If you don’t stop this I’m going to kill you!”

Without missing a beat, he responded, “Some causes are worth dying for.”

Posted in Israel | Comments Off on WHY ISRAEL’S ELECTIONS WERE REALLY ABOUT 1967

Author, psychologist delves inside ‘The Israeli Mind’

Posted on September 11, 2015 by Luke Ford

Jonathan Kirsch writes:

He describes how he witnessed a lighthearted conversation in a Jerusalem coffee shop between a graduate student and a young teacher about classroom cheating. “Well, if I caught a student cheating, I wouldn’t view it as a negative,” the teacher said. “I would see it as an indication that he wants to succeed.” Gratch concludes: “The Israeli mind’s failures at empathy, its lack of regard for reality, and its relentless drive for success, all produce a predilection for cutting corners, bluffing, and lying.”

The values and behaviors that make up what Gratch calls the Israeli national character can be seen as a form of psychological self-defense. “Israeli psychologists … have noted that everyday belligerence in Israeli society is rooted in unconscious anxiety,” he writes.

I think you can see the Israeli mind as a distillation of the Jewish mind.

Rabbi Robert Orkand writes:

Israelis are oppositional and quick to say no, Gratch says, which, as a reaction to danger, serves as a survival mechanism. It is rooted in the Jewish Diaspora experience, and it continues to operate in an independent Jewish state, even though it is no longer essential and even counterproductive.

This psychological defense mechanism, Gratch says, is largely responsible for Israel’s success, but “to the extent that the oppositional character of the Israeli mind drives or shapes Israeli actions, reactions, or policies, it is imperative for Israel’s as well as the world’s security, that we understand it and learn how to deal with it.”

…Despite their achievements, Israelis have not been able to fully free themselves from what Gratch calls “the ideology of affliction.” In the Israeli mind, he maintains, ingrained feelings of insecurity clash with the reality of Israel being the most powerful and advanced country in the region.

…Annihilation anxiety, combined with hyper-masculinity and a narrative of self-sacrifice, Gratch says, all clash with the nation’s aspiration for normalcy or even greatness.

Kirkus Reviews:

On one hand, the Jews’ self-identity as the chosen people allowed them a self-aggrandizing role in history; on the other hand, their “outsized” accomplishments in all fields over the ages have resulted from a “compensatory drive” to overcome their sense of insignificance. Another facet of Israeli narcissism, Gratch notes, is the lack of empathy, revealed in the inability to understand and experience the plight of their neighbors, the Palestinians. More troubling than the Israeli disrespect for authority and penchant for cutting corners is the deeply internalized sense of victimization that manifests in paranoia and defensiveness—a frightening mix vis-à-vis the Iran nuclear crisis and conflict with the Palestinians.

Posted in Anti-Semitism, Israel, Jews | Comments Off on Author, psychologist delves inside ‘The Israeli Mind’