My earliest recollection of hearing about the Holocaust came in the mid-1950s, as our family sat around the Passover Seder table. My parents had invited my mother’s best friend to join us that evening, and I remember listening intently to the discussion about families lost and the devastation wrought by Nazi rule throughout Europe.

That mental image reappeared when I read that Amazon UK had taken down a promotion by the company Harma Art for the sale of T-shirts and hoodies bearing a silkscreened reproduction of “The Last Jew in Vinnitsa,” one of the most widely circulated photos of Nazi brutality.

A lone Jewish victim sits on the edge of a ravine with his face to the camera, as a member of a Nazi Einsatzgruppe (the SS paramilitary death squad) is about to shoot him in the back of the head. Fourteen other Einsatzgruppen troops stand behind the one with the pistol, about to witness just one more brutal killing in a day that must have taken hundreds, if not thousands of innocent victims.

That photo always gets to me. It personalizes the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust to one terrified victim. For a brief moment, you can try to imagine the fear that each individual experienced just before death.

What did Harma Art intend when it had those T-shirts and hoodies manufactured? Was it looking to market that apparel to Neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic far-right operatives who might don the shirts at rallies and demonstrations?

It’s not readily apparent. The blurb that accompanied photos of the merchandise promoted it this way: “Choose from our great collection of authentic designs and stand out from the crowd!”

Shock value! Be the first in your neighborhood to wear a hoodie with a photo of a Jew about to be shot!

The ease with which this marketing pitch was made tells us volumes about the global trivialization and desecration of the Holocaust, even while there are still survivors with tattoos on their arms who witnessed the worst moral depravity in history.

We saw an early indication of what was to come in 1965, with the airing of the comedy series “Hogan’s Heroes” on CBS, with its bumbling Nazi characters. Later, in 1995, “Seinfeld” undermined the depravity of Nazis by introducing a mean shop proprietor, labeling him “the Soup Nazi.”

In the nearly 25 years since, we’ve seen dozens of examples of Holocaust-related terms, or the word “genocide” being applied to situations that are neither appropriate nor analogous.

Israel often is the target of such intentionally misplaced opprobrium. Its defensive barrier is compared to being akin to the Warsaw ghetto.

Editorial cartoonists have been engaged in this for some time, with depictions of Israeli soldiers as Nazis. One that I particularly recall was in the Danish newspaper Politiken. In a play on another famous photo from the Holocaust, in which Nazi soldiers, with guns pointed, are rounding up Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, and a young boy has his hands up, this cartoon substitutes Palestinians for Jews, and Israeli soldiers for Nazis.

And then there was the homework assignment in Oswego County, New York, that asked students to make arguments for or against the “Final Solution.”

Even members of Congress are not immune to the spread of this kind of trivialization. In the debate over health care reform, members from both parties traded barbs that contained Holocaust-era imagery, including references to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, “the big lie,” and appeasement (as in the Munich Pact, which preceded the outbreak of war in Europe).

Comparisons of undocumented immigrant detention centers to Nazi concentration camps is the most recent example. Pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) legislation introduced in Congress only weeks ago alluded to the need for imposing an economic boycott of Israel, just as we had done with Nazi Germany (and the Soviet Union and South Africa).

Notwithstanding efforts in many places to institute Holocaust education programs, the passage of time has presented Jewish educators and organizations with a tremendous challenge.

A poll commissioned by the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany (known as the Claims Conference) found that among American millennials, “22 percent have not heard of or are not sure if they have heard of the Holocaust.” Further, 41 percent in the poll “believe that 2 million Jews or less were killed in the Holocaust.” And 49 percent could not name one concentration camp or ghetto. An astounding 66 percent were not able to identify the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Research in Canada, Austria and Germany revealed somewhat similar findings. Millennials in the latter two countries felt overwhelmingly that Holocaust education was important (many had participated in such programs); yet in Austria, 17 percent of those polled believed that only “100,000 or fewer Jews were murdered” in the Holocaust.

And that brings us back to the Internet offering for clothing adorned with the searing photo from Vinnitsa. The passage of time, 24/7 coverage of civil wars, executions and a daily plethora of amateur videos of shootouts and shoot-ups that come to us as “Breaking News” have dulled the senses to genocides and violence of historic proportions.

And though there are dueling arguments about the effect of video games, can one really doubt that such fare at least makes young people inured to violence, past or present?

Four decades ago, when I began my career in community relations, I used to have a line in my speeches that said: “There’ll come a time when the last survivor, who was there and could tell us about what he or she experienced, will be gone. And then there will be no one here to answer, with first-person authority, the Holocaust minimizers and deniers.”

We’re close to that point. We need to redouble our efforts, at every level, to educate and remember. Media outlets cannot be flippant or careless when these images and comparisons are aired.

The mega-Internet community, already under fire for allowing “anything goes” content policies to prevail over common sense and good taste, needs to be far more vigilant than it claims it is. And officeholders, at every level, need to dial back completely the kind of harmful hyperbole which often gets a pass for being just good old political rhetoric.
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The slippery slope of Holocaust trivialization is upon us. We owe it to the victims, and ourselves, to ensure now that it be reversed.

Daniel S. Mariaschin is CEO of B'nai B'rith International.

In recent weeks, I found myself inundated with front page news headlines, opinion pieces and press releases on the Israeli government’s decision to bar entry to two American congresswomen to the country (it just so happened that these congresswomen also attempted to bring the unfathomable thought of boycotting Israel into the halls of Congress).  The outpour of reactions, ranging from disagreement to outrage, from the American Jewish community was striking to me, because in real-time over in Israel, it appears the country could once again be on the verge of war, and this time on several fronts.

Last fall, I attended a briefing on a report by the Jewish Institute for National Security in America (JINSA) titled, “Israel’s Next Northern War: Operational and Legal Challenges.” A fundamental issue the report articulates is that because Hezbollah cannot defeat Israel by force, the Iranian proxy will exploit its next war with Israel in the court of public opinion, further delegitimizing the Jewish State in the international community, even if Israel decisively wins in battle.

Publicly lambasting the Israeli government on the issue of the congresswomen simply gave more fuel to the fire to a media and world community that takes any opportunity to criticize or condemn the one Jewish State. It doesn't seem wise to do so at a time when we should be advocating in the public sphere about the intensifying crisis on Israel’s borders. Perhaps we in the Diaspora need a refresher on Israel’s security concerns. It may not be public knowledge, but Israel cannot afford to lose one battle.

After decades of war, neighboring states in confrontation with Israel realized they could not conquer Israel through the conventional methods of military, air and intelligence warfare. Therefore, Israel’s enemies focused on long-range ballistic missiles and terrorism. In formulating Israel’s security doctrine, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion knew that military victory would always be limited and temporary at best due to the enormous size of the Arab world and geographic and population asymmetry in comparison with Israel. Israel’s single defense goal, therefore, is to ensure its preservation, and as such, it cannot afford to lose one single war.  In the decades since Israel’s major conventional wars, and with the ongoing phenomenon of hybrid warfare (where a law-abiding army is confronted by non-state actors and guerilla militias that do not abide by the laws of war), and after the lessons of the 2006 Lebanon War, the IDF expanded the security doctrine and developed a new concept of preemptive warfare: the Campaign Between Wars (CBW). The strategy’s goals are to delay and deter war by weakening the enemy’s force buildup and capabilities, exposing the enemy’s clandestine military activities and creating optimal conditions for Israel if it should face war.

The CBW strategy has been successful thus far in delaying war as it continues to meet its objectives. However, the threats continue to grow, and with recent escalations, the region is arguably ripe for war. Here is a brief rundown on the challenges Israel currently faces on its five fronts in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula: As most of us know, at the center of all Israel’s perils lies Iran’s desire for hegemonic control of the region and its desire to wipe Israel off the map. Through Iran’s militias supported by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Quds Force in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, Iran’s presence is ever-growing in the region and preventing its military entrenchment (and its unrelenting desire for nuclear weapons) has been Israel’s top priority for years. Israel is currently engaged in a shadow war with Iran through its proxies and forces surrounding Israel’s borders and in Gaza. The risk of a multi-front war is very real.

To Israel’s border in the north with Lebanon sits Iranian--backed Hezbollah—arguably the most powerful non-state actor in the world--which has been stockpiling missiles since the last war in 2006. According to Israeli officials, Hezbollah is currently estimated to have as many as 150,000 missiles, many of which are now much more technologically advanced precision-based missiles, which have the capability to be guided to a specific site—like major Israeli cities. Therefore, in recent months, Israel has made its primary focus thwarting the Hezbollah/Iranian precision-guided missile program. According to the aforementioned report by JINSA, Hezbollah now possesses more firepower than 95 percent of the world’s conventional militaries, and more rockets and missiles than all European NATO members combined. Several serious tit-for-tats with Hezbollah over the last couple of weeks have put the country—and region—on edge, as any escalation can very quickly turn into full-scale war. With Iranian-backed Hezbollah in the north threatening to destroy Israel, this time with the capabilities to wage a damaging war, Israel (and the world community) is on high alert.

To Israel’s northeast, the vacuum for power in Syria has enabled Iran’s ascension. Iran has sought to establish offensive drone bases and military posts in Syria near the Israeli border, and it continues to be met with Israel’s zero tolerance policy. Iran has also attempted to build a land corridor linking Iraq to Syria in order to transfer weapons and move its militias, bringing Iraq into the fray. With the CBW strategy, Israel has been both clandestinely and openly destroying Iran’s encroachments.

It’s been five years since 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, the war with Hamas in Gaza, and though there has been relative quiet over the years, Israel has been tolerating missiles, incendiary balloons sparking dozens of fires, violent border riots, etc. Every so often, due to rocket attacks into Israel, there are skirmishes between the IDF and Hamas, which can very easily spiral into another war campaign. Other Islamist extremists have also found their way through Egypt to the Gaza strip and are now vying for power against Hamas. Believe it or not, Israel faces the threat of even more extreme groups if Hamas should fall.

In the West Bank, violence is mostly contained, though terror ensues on Israeli citizens always. The Palestinian Authority, led by the weakened Mahmoud Abbas and backed by the militant Fatah, could face off with Hamas (they are at war with each other as well) if Abbas should lose power or die in office. The risk of chaos in the West Bank with Iran looming large is a very real threat to the stability and safety of Israel. There is also a soon—to--be unveiled peace plan created by President Trump, which invariably comes with the prospect of unpredictable responses from the Palestinians. If history tells us anything, these responses are usually violent.

To Israel’s southern-most border with Egypt, in the Sinai Peninsula, there remains an ongoing jihadist insurgency due to Egypt’s weak control of the area after the Egyptian Revolution in 2011. This means groups like ISIS and other Islamist militant militias are active, vying for control and fighting Egypt’s security forces right on Israel’s border.
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As you can see from this very brief synopsis of the security situation along Israel’s borders, the reality is forbidding.  Through the IDF’s strategic “Campaign Between Wars,” they have been mostly successful keeping war at bay, but the reality is that when dealing with irrational actors, it is often very hard to predict tomorrow.  So shouldn’t we be spending our time and energy with opinion pieces and press releases on Israel's serious security concerns until that becomes the front page of The New York Times, and not the outrage over two congresswomen?  If we don’t spread the knowledge on what Israel’s enemies are up to, who else will? It is our job, as we sit in the safety of the Diaspora, to show the world just what Israel is up against. Without our advocacy, the world’s indifference is deafening.

​​Rebecca Rose is Associate Director of Young Leadership & Development at B’nai B’rith International. She holds an M.A. in Political Science in Security and Diplomacy from Tel Aviv University.

 
Recently, I received an early morning phone call from my parents in Europe.  While I talk to my parents once a week when they are on vacation, I never receive calls first thing in the morning. I thought to myself that something must be wrong. Making things worse, trying to communicate with my parents was difficult since the phone connection on their cruise was terrible. However, I was able to understand them saying, “Grandpa is in the hospital.”  Fortunately, my parents established a better connection and explained my grandfather’s medical situation and that the matter was not an emergency. While not an emergency, at ninety-four, anytime he is in the hospital it’s not small potatoes.

The next few days I was in constant communication with my grandfather, his doctors and my parents.  I feel like I got a crash course in medicine, learning about different medications and procedures. Trying to talk with the professionals about the intricacies of his medical situation, and then communicating that information to my parents, often through email, proved to be a challenging, yet doable, task.

After a few days, with his condition still not improving, I decided the best course of action was for me to travel to New York and visit him in the hospital.  While packing for my trip, my wife turned around to me and said, “You know, you should write a blog about children and grandchildren who are caregivers for their elderly parents or grandparents. Look at how much time you have spent on the phone over the past few days getting updates on your grandfather’s condition. Can you imagine being a caregiver for a family member day in and day out?”  

Consequently, it got me thinking. Who are the millions of people that dedicate their lives to helping their family members in need? Often, caregivers are responsible for helping their family members with mobility issues, cooking meals, shopping, laundry, bathing, companionship and transportation.

Firstly, there about 44 million people who provide unpaid family care to a disabled child, spouse, sibling or parent. Secondly, according to the American Association of Caregiving Youth, there are 1.4 million children between 8 and 18 who are caregivers, and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, reports that 10 percent of older Americans in their 60s and 12 percent of seniors in their 70s whose parents are living, serve as caregivers. The number of children and seniors who are caregivers was not a statistic I was expecting to discover. It’s hard to imagine someone who is 8 or 79 serving as a caregiver.    

While people often are happy to be caregivers for loved ones, the devotion comes with a price. For instance, there is a financial burden placed upon caregivers who are performing unpaid labor. Sadly, the financial costs run deeper than simply not receiving a paycheck because often caregivers are forced to quit their paying job or reduce their hours. This is problematic because it causes people to have reduced pay, which can have lasting consequences on people’s pensions, Social Security earnings and 401k accounts. Furthermore, when adults serve as caregivers, it can lead to problems for their own health. Research discovered that caregivers, despite going to doctor’s visits with family members, are less likely to take preventive health care measures such regularly monitoring their blood pressure and having mammograms and colonoscopies. For children, the negative effects of being a caregiver can manifest themselves when they conflict with homework, socialization with peers and a student’s ability to concentrate in class.

So now that we know a problem exists for caregivers, how can we provide a fix? As I mentioned in a previous blog, “Paid Family Leave: It Impacts Seniors Too!,” Senator Kirstin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) introduced legislation in Congress that would provide people paid leave in the event they have to look after a sick parent. While this would only help people who are temporary caregivers, at least it’s a start. Other ideas include a caregiver tax credit or allowing caregivers to earn a credit towards future Social Security earnings.
​
Upon reflection, my week of monitoring my grandfather’s medical condition was easy, compared to the countless tasks caregivers are required to perform every day. Fortunately, my grandfather got better and returned home! Unfortunately, all too often, countless children and seniors must assume a caregiver role that requires them to make sacrifices for a loved one. Hopefully, through public awareness and legislative fixes, we can make policy changes that ensure the financial, physical and emotional wellbeing of caregivers of all ages! 

It’s a tragically familiar scenario:  A gunman kills multiple innocent civilians in a shooting spree, reigniting a national debate about gun violence legislation.  The policy debate invariably ends in stasis, as political forces on both sides of the aisle fail to reach a compromise.
 
The twin tragedies of Dayton and El Paso, however, have given rise to the possibility of a breakthrough.  A bipartisan proposal that would encourage states to adopt “red flag” laws to take guns away from people believed to be dangers to themselves is gaining momentum in the Senate.  Offered by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the plan has received support from President Trump, who said in a White House speech that those judged to pose a grave risk to society should be denied access to firearms.  Red flag laws authorize courts to issue protection orders that allow police to confiscate firearms from such people, as well as prohibiting them from buying new guns.
 
Gains on State Level
 
In the wake of last year’s mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, the number of states with red flag laws has jumped from just five to 17.  One of those states is California, whose law was enacted following a massacre at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014.  California permits family members to petition courts directly for confiscation orders.  A law recently passed in New York would allow teachers to petition the courts, as well.
 
Congress
 
The Graham-Blumenthal proposal would incentivize state red flag laws by offering states grants for passing them.  Significantly, though, the bill would not limit gun access at the federal level, which could be the key to its bipartisan appeal.  Republican senators normally predisposed against gun legislation are more likely to view favorably a measure that yields gun policy making to individual states.
 
Senate Democrats are largely united behind red flag laws, but a growing number of Republicans are joining them.  Senate Majority Whip John Thune (S.D.) has spoken optimistically about reaching bipartisan consensus on the issue, but eyes remained focused on Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kent.), who has not publicly taken a position on red flag laws.
 
The NRA
 
The National Rifle Association has voiced support for the goal of keeping guns away from dangerous people but has largely opposed state red flags until recently.  Citing threats to due process, the organization has objected to the confiscation of guns from people who have not committed crimes and may lose their guns without having a chance to be heard.  But the Parkland shooting has led to a change in the NRA’s tone, as they have begun to signal more openness toward such laws.
 
Implementation
 
The success of red flag laws depends not just on their passage, but on their implementation and on key details, such as who is allowed to file petitions.  Also, the matter of how law enforcement officials educate the public about pursuing such emergency legal options can tremendously impact their effectiveness.
 
But even as other gun measures, like expanded background checks, closing gun show loopholes, and an assault weapons ban once again come into focus, the red flag proposal stands the greatest chance of gaining political currency.  With bipartisan support growing in Congress and President Trump appearing to back the idea, the moment for forward progress toward reasonable gun legislation may soon be arriving.

“Is it the memory of times long gone, or a presentiment of times to come? Does this old animal perhaps know more than the three generations that foregather in the synagogue each time?”

With so many brief but sublime sentences packed into the short passage comprising Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel “In Our Synagogue,” it is indeed difficult to choose just one excerpt to quote. The reader learns about the stealthy rodent living for years in the narrator’s house of worship, whose coat of fur has acquired the blue-green color of the building’s ancient walls. Well-known to the congregants, especially its women, the animal is not concealed by its faulty camouflage. 

Completed in 2016, “In the Synagogue,” named Best Short Film at this year’s Odessa Film Festival, is inspired by the existing content of Kafka’s story. Director Ivan Orlenko shot portions of his 30-minute black and white movie with Yiddish dialogue in Kiev and inside the mid-19th century Khust synagogue—in use throughout World War II—in southwestern Ukraine.  Conveying an elegiac sense of loss, as well as tragedy, the visual impact of these places amplifies the original tale, now experienced through the hindsight of the Holocaust. As the director notes of this region: “…now only a few preserved synagogues and neglected cemeteries are left…This picture of devastation, the forgotten world, made me film in Yiddish. It is this sense of a long-lost time that predetermined that maximum attention would be drawn to the signs of that time, language and everyday life. Time running indifferently and inexorably, only sometimes allowing the story to finish, is probably what my film is about…”

*****

The impact of Jewish life on European culture was felt centuries before the dawn of the modern era. The Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park is presenting “The Colmar Treasure: A Medieval Jewish Legacy,” an exhibition which shines a light on some of the rare and important medieval Judaica on loan from Paris’ Cluny Museum, almost all of which has never been seen in the United States.
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Discovered in 1863 in the wall of a confectionary located in the Alsatian town of Colmar, The Colmar Treasure dates from the mid-14th century and includes an inscribed dome-shaped Jewish wedding ring, rings and other jewelry embellished with gems and semi-precious stones, and buttons and coins rendered in silver and gold, as well as accessories like belt fragments and headpieces. Among the household items is a tiny, meticulously designed silver key, presumably kept by the lady of the house.

It is assumed that these valuable items were owned by at least one family and were hidden for safekeeping during the time before the town’s Jewish community, who were believed to have poisoned the wells to spread plague, was immolated en masse.  Thereafter, Jews did not return to Colmar for a quarter century.  The installation of The Colmar Treasure is supplemented by the Cloisters’ illuminated books, manuscripts and decorative arts, and includes objects borrowed from the Jewish Theological Seminary and private collections. The show is on view through January 12th, 2020.
 
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The legacy of Europe’s Jewish culture has become key to combatting the rise in anti-Semitism that has occurred worldwide.  Noting this on its website, the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (www.jewishheritage.org) sponsored by B’nai B’rith Europe and other Jewish organizations in cooperation with the National Library of Israel has announced that its European Days of Jewish Culture (EDJC) will be designated as a celebration honoring its 20th anniversary.  Held each September, wide-ranging programs organized under a unifying theme are produced by local communities in more than 400 cities in 28 countries.
 
Yale University Press will release another entry in its excellent “Jewish Lives” series of books intended for the general reader on November 19th.  A biography which underscores the continued relevance and vivacity of his songs and musicals, “Irving Berlin: New York Genius” by James Kaplan examines the life of the composer (1888-1989) and his musical output through the history of the frenetic, ever-changing kaleidoscope of the city where he spent most of his life.

​The Argentine government recently decided to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and ordered the freezing of the Lebanese Islamist group’s assets in the country. This historic decision coincided with the 25th anniversary of the 1994 terrorist attack at the site of the Jewish community center, known as AMIA, in Buenos Aires, that killed 85 people and injured hundreds.
 
The evidence that Iran and Hezbollah were behind this attack (and a previous one against the Israeli Embassy in 1992) is extensive. And yet, Argentina continued to have diplomatic relations with Iran, and Hezbollah’s activities in the region did not receive enough scrutiny.
 
The decision of the current Argentine government to brand Hezbollah as a terrorist group is of critical importance, not only to prevent future Iranian-sponsored attacks in the region but also to curtail Hezbollah’s ability to raise funds, particularly through drug trafficking and other illegal activities.
 
The loosely regulated tri-border area between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay has for a long time been used by Hezbollah to raise money and plan possible attacks. In fact, it is widely believed that part of the planning for the AMIA bombing took place there.
 
Last year, Argentina’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF-AR) ordered the freezing of the assets and money of members of the so-called “Barakat Clan,” a criminal organization engaged in extorsion, counterfeiting, drug and arms trafficking and money laudering. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Barakat has long served as a “treasurer” for Hezbollah.
 
Argentina is the first country in the region to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and the decision was probably prompted by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Buenos Aires just a day after the AMIA anniversary commemoration. Pompeo expressed the hope that other countries would follow Argentina’s example.
 
The secretary of state met with President Macri, visited the AMIA premises to honor the victims of the bombing and participated in a hemispheric counter-terrorism summit hosted by the Argentine foreign ministry. At this summit, the formation of a new counter-terrorism alliance between the U.S., Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay (named “three plus one”) was announced.
 
Pompeo also stated that Washington would offer a $7 million reward for information leading to the capture of Salman Rauf Salman, who had been accused by the late AMIA case prosecutor Alberto Nisman of being the on-the-ground coordinator of the AMIA bombing.
 
Nisman, whom I had the honor to meet several years ago, once said to me with clear frustration that Argentina should have become a regional leader in the fight against terrorism. Perhaps now, 25 years after the AMIA attack, this  is finally becoming reality. 

​Adriana Camisar is B’nai B’rith International's Special Advisor on Latin American Affairs. A native of Argentina, Camisar is an attorney by training and holds a Master’s degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Recently, the White House has considered changing how the federal government calculates the poverty line by altering how inflation is measured. As a result, this change would potentially result in fewer people falling below the poverty line. While the idea of having fewer people in poverty sounds great, this proposal would actually cause a smaller number of people to qualify for badly needed government assistance.

The poverty line is critical because it’s used to determine if people are candidates for specific benefits associated with programs like Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Presently, individuals who make less than $12,490 a year are under the poverty line, which includes 4.7 million seniors.

Let’s take Medicare as an example. The administration’s change to the poverty line’s calculation would increase the costs of prescription drugs and premiums for low-income seniors. This would impact approximately 250,000 seniors who use prescription drugs and could force 150,000 elderly people to pay more than $1,000 for continued coverage for doctors’ visits.

Sadly, changing the poverty line calculation would also decrease the benefits for older Americans associated with Medicaid. At the moment, millions of adults have qualified for Medicaid expansion through the ACA, including older adults between 50 and 65. Under the administration’s proposal, changing how inflation is measured for the poverty line would cause 250,000 people to lose their Medicaid expansion coverage over a 10-year period.

Unfortunately, the negative impact of changing the poverty line calculation does not stop with healthcare. The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) helps people in this country with their energy bills, like those for heat and air conditioning. According to a 2018 survey by the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, seniors are in 46 percent of households that receive LIHEAP. Are we really suggesting cutting benefits from low-income seniors who need help with their energy bills, especially in states with extreme weather like Florida and Minnesota?  

When Congress passed tax cut legislation in 2017, B’nai B’rith argued that ballooning deficits could cause lawmakers to campaign for cuts to important social programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Our press release from December 2017 stated, “Perhaps the biggest danger this Congressional tax plan includes is the likelihood of future cuts to critical federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid to help pay down what most economists say will be a massive increase in the deficit that will result from these tax cuts. Experts predict that the ensuing revenue short-fall would have to be made up by drastic cuts to programs fundamental to seniors in need.”

So here we are! The U.S. budget deficit ballooned to $738.6 billion during the first eight months of the 2019 fiscal year, and, as we predicted, proposals have been rolled out that cut benefits from older Americans.
  
Seniors living below the poverty line are not likely to gain full-time employment to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Consequently, I hope the administration rethinks this policy so our country can help meet the challenges faced every day by older Americans.

​​Evan Carmen, Esq. is the Assistant Director for Aging Policy at the B’nai B’rith International Center for Senior Services. He holds a B.A. from American University in political science and a J.D. from New York Law School.  Prior to joining B’nai B’rith International he worked in the Office of Presidential Correspondence for the Obama White House, practiced as an attorney at Covington and Burling, LLP, worked as an aide for New York City Council Member Tony Avella and interned for Congressman Gary Ackerman’s office. Click here to read more from Evan Carmen.​​

Boris Johnson has finally fulfilled his political ambitions by becoming the U.K.’s 77th Prime Minister. His biggest short-term priority will be ensuring that the U.K. leaves the European Union by October 31st in as orderly a fashion as possible. But it is a fair question to ask whether the new PM, who is an avowed philosemite and admirer of Jewish culture, will look equally with favour on Israel. When one looks back at Johnson’s record, one finds a rather mixed picture and one which reflects the inconsistencies for which he is sometimes accused.

Firstly, it is necessary to dispel a myth: that Boris Johnson is nothing but a British version of President Trump. Certainly, there are superficial similarities. Both have a somewhat maverick and ebullient style, and both are willing to ride a coach and horses through their respective political establishments. But the similarities mask obvious differences.

For one, Johnson is a classically trained scholar whose knowledge of modern history and culture is compelling. For another, he is an experienced politician, having served as an MP since 2001, Mayor of London for 8 years and, most recently, as Foreign Secretary. Moreover, Johnson’s occasionally offensive remarks mask the fact that, as a classical liberal, he champions individual freedom and liberty and has often been positive towards ethnic minorities and LGBT people. He specifically condemned President Trump’s Muslim migration ban. And as a journalist of 30 years standing, he has little time for the incessant attacks on the press which have become routine in Washington.

This makes a difference to the Jews in one important sense. Johnson is a Brexiteer because he believes that E.U. membership is anti-democratic and undermines Parliamentary sovereignty. He champions liberalism, openness and democratic institutions, the kind of political environment in which Jews traditionally thrive and to which they make the most positive contribution. It helps that he is proud of his Jewish maternal great grandfather, a Lithuanian rabbi.

In the past, Johnson has lauded Israel as a ‘great country’ and described himself as a ‘passionate Zionist’. He visited the country as a university student in 1984 and spent some time volunteering on Kibbutz Kfar Hanassi in northern Israel. He would later speak of the ‘bonds of hard work, self-reliance and audacious and relentless energy’ holding together ‘a remarkable country’ and, in a comparison of Israel with Churchill, praised the ‘daring, audacity, derring-do and indomitability’ of the Jewish state. As Mayor of London, he arrived in Israel for a three-day trade mission in November 2015 with a team of high tech entrepreneurs. He later said that London was the ‘natural tech partner for Israeli firms.’ This extensive economic and technological collaboration is likely to increase now that Johnson is Prime Minister.

Johnson has also condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the strongest terms, describing it as a ‘completely crazy’ campaign led by ‘ridiculous, snuggle-toothed, corduroy-wearing lefty academics.’ Those comments, made in 2015, led to a series of meetings in Ramallah being cancelled. He has also understood the endemic anti-Israel bias found within the U.N. In a visit to the U.N. Human Rights Council in its first session of 2018, he urged the body to ditch Item 7 (which singles out Israel for criticism) as it was ‘disproportionate and damaging to the cause of peace.’

But at times, he has said things that have offended supporters of Israel. In 2014, at the height of Israel’s war with Hamas, Johnson deprecated Israel’s actions as ‘disproportionate, ugly and tragic’ and described the war as ‘utterly horrifying and unacceptable.’ He has condemned ‘incitement and rocket fire against Israel’ but also called for an ‘independent inquiry’ over 120 Palestinian deaths on the Gaza border. Johnson was also seen as playing an important role in drafting U.N. Security Council resolution 2334, which said that all settlements established since 1967, including in East Jerusalem, ‘were a flagrant violation under international law.’

The resolution was widely condemned within the U.K. Jewish community, whose representatives considered it a betrayal and disgrace. He is a strong supporter of the two-state solution, which marks him out as having a thoroughly conventional perspective on the conflict. But this led to a somewhat nuanced celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, in which he lamented that the Arab population had been denied self determination, even though the declaration did not speak of the ‘national rights’ of the Arab population.

On Iran, it is hard to read the exact contours of a foreign policy. In the past, he has expressed support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran Deal, which was signed in 2015. He rallied round the E.U. in rejecting Trump’s decision to leave the agreement. In 2018, he said that Britain had ‘no intention of walking away’ from the nuclear deal and as recently as July 2019, urged Iran not to abandon the JCPOA. In a recent interview with the U.K.-based Jewish News, Johnson continued to defend the agreement but hinted that if there was evidence of Iranian non-compliance, Britain stood ready to re-impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Yet this can only mean that, contrary to all previous positions, the U.K. would be abandoning the JCPOA. Now that tensions between Iran and the West have ramped up in recent months, it remains to be seen whether Johnson’s government will pivot more towards Europe or the USA.
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When it comes to terror groups, his record is again inconsistent. He rejected calls consistently to ban Al Quds Day marches in London or to prevent the Hezbollah flag from flying, despite the raucous antisemitic rhetoric on display. Yet when the Muslim Home Secretary did proscribe Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, Boris Johnson tweeted his congratulations.
What are we to make of all this? It is fair to conclude that Johnson is a friend of Israel and a man committed to its peace, security and prosperity. But in his views on settlements, Gaza and Iran, his perspective is largely aligned with that of the Foreign Office. 

​Jeremy Havardi is a historian and journalist based in London. He has written four books, including ‘The Greatest Briton’, a volume of essays on Churchill’s life and political philosophy, ‘Projecting Britain at war’, a study of British war films and, most recently, ‘Refuting the anti-Israel narrative.’ He is currently working on a project that examines the Jewish contribution to modern civilisation. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. 

​Nearly four years ago, at around the time that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, or as it more commonly known, “the Iran deal”) was reached, I wrote a post for this blog on the “snapback sanctions” part of the deal. The biting U.N. Security Council sanctions—which had brought Iran to the table in the first place—were supposed to be snapped back into place if Iran was not living up to the deal. The snapback sanctions were meant to mollify critics and skeptics who questioned the wisdom of so quickly reversing sanctions on a country that had been found to be cheating on numerous commitments.
 
My original post went into the cumbersome bureaucratic hurdles that would be necessary before the sanctions could be reinstated. This is the key paragraph:
 
“Aside from unnecessary bureaucracy, the more serious problem is that the language in the nuclear deal and in the subsequent U.N. Security Council resolution state that it must be a ‘significant’ compliance issue. This is vague—what exactly constitutes ‘significant non-compliance?’ The fear is that the tendency of the world powers will be to minimize or ignore non-compliance issues as not ‘significant’ enough to rise to the level that would require ‘snapback’ sanctions. Why? Because once the U.N. sanctions are re-introduced, the U.N. Security Council resolution ‘noted’ Iran’s stated position that Iran would stop living up to its commitments in the nuclear deal in full. Essentially, the Security Council resolution allowed the ‘snapback’ sanctions to be held hostage by the deal. “
 
Much has happened in the meantime. The U.S., led by a new administration, pulled out of the JCPOA and re-imposed U.S. sanctions (which are extremely tough, but not as far-reaching as Security Council sanctions could be) and added new sanctions as well. The Europeans have been trying to get around the U.S. sanctions by creating a loophole for companies to do business with Iran. Iran, feeling the bite of the U.S. sanctions on its weak economy, has been trying to extort the Europeans—who are desperate to save the JCPOA—into giving it more money through nuclear blackmail. Iran has already exceeded the limit of enriched uranium allowed under the deal and is increasing the percentage of enrichment on its stockpile of uranium, two steps on the road towards building nuclear weapons. Iran has also been trying to wreak havoc in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, threatening the oil supply from some of the world’s most productive oil fields.
 
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombshell news conference displaying evidence seized by the Mossad in a daring raid on the Iranian regime’s clandestine atomic archive in Tehran, which showed that Iran had deceived the international community by not declaring the true extent of their advanced nuclear weapons program, was greeted with a shrug by the international community. We were told that everyone knew that Iran had a nuclear program, that this was the point of the JCPOA—to stop it. But Iran’s declarations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were to be the baseline of the deal. If the international community is so willing to accept a lie as the baseline to the deal, what else will Iran be allowed to get away with?
 
Following the press conference, Netanyahu presented at the U.N. General Assembly evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear warehouse in Tehran. As this, too, was undeclared to the IAEA, it would also be a breach of the deal, and a grave one at that. The international community initially shrugged this off as well. However, months later, the IAEA inspected the warehouse and reportedly found radioactive traces. If the reports are true, this is yet another undeclared violation, to go along with the declared violations that Iran has now begun to openly tout.
 
In the face of Iran’s breaches of the JCPOA, the countries party to the deal (minus the U.S., of course) met to discuss the violations. The verdict? Iranian non-compliance was not “significant” enough to warrant even starting the bureaucratic complaint process.
 
The fears that many Iran deal skeptics had regarding the JCPOA—that the deal itself would end up becoming more precious than the goal of a de-nuclearized Iran—are sadly being borne out by the behavior of the countries party to the deal. What does Iran have to do before the international community will decide that a “significant” breach of its nuclear commitments has been made?

As everyone is aware from the news, student loan debt is an enormous problem in this country. A whopping 44 million people have incurred a total of $1.5 trillion in debt.  And yes, you read correctly, that’s trillion with a T! Most people associate this crisis with young people in their 20s and 30s. However, there is a rapidly growing population of older Americans who are being crippled by student loan debt. Surprising as it may sound, student loan debt is hurting seniors at an alarming rate.

Now, you are probably saying to yourself, how can that be? How is it possible that people 60+ have not paid back debt incurred in their 20s? First, the student loan debt drowning older Americans was not incurred during their 20s. Seniors with debt tend to be:

1) individuals who took out or cosigned loans to help finance their child or grandchild’s college education, or

2) people who went back to school during the Great Recession in 2008 to improve their marketability for future employers.

These two factors have led to financial hardship on senior citizens.

For example, the Wall Street Journal reported that people age 60+ owe $86 billion in student loan debt, and that between 2010 and 2017, this group’s student loan debt rose by 161 percent. Richard Cordray, former director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), said, “It is alarming that older Americans [age 60+] are the fastest growing segment of student loan borrowers…We are concerned that student loans are contributing to financial insecurity for many older Americans.” According to a report issued by CFPB during the Obama administration, an increasing number of seniors are seeing their Social Security benefits taken to pay back student loan debts, despite this being their only income every month.  In addition, the report states that the increasing debt on the backs of older Americans has caused them to save less for retirement.

Recently, the American Association of Retired People (AARP) reported about Kevin and Tonya Bower from Kelso, Washington.  They took out $75,000 in student loans to pay for their daughter’s college education, as well as their own. They both returned to college during their 40s because of the negative impact the Great Recession had on their careers. Kevin returned to public school to get a bachelor’s degree in business, organizational management and leadership, while Tonya returned to school for a two-year degree in web and graphic design. Although the couple refinanced their loans, they have been forced to reduce their 401(k) contributions due to their $700 monthly loan payments.  

Obviously, the government’s ability to garnish your Social Security if you are delinquent on your federal student loans is problematic for seniors who are financially struggling. Thankfully, Senators Rob Wyden and Sherrod Brown have introduced legislation that would end the federal government’s practice of taking away Social Security benefits to pay back student loan debt. They feel that Social Security should not be used as a vehicle to pay back student loans. Senator Brown said, “Americans work hard to earn their Social Security and we cannot allow it to be stolen away by student debt…instead of going after seniors and the disabled, the government should be working to address the skyrocketing cost of higher education and provide Americans with relief from the crushing levels of student debt.” When a senior’s Social Security benefits are partially seized by the government, the effect can be particularly painful if the senior was unable to personally save for retirement. 

Some people might argue that older Americans shouldn’t be taking out loans for their children and grandchildren to attend college. Why can’t these kids just attend public school?  Unfortunately, according to U.S. News & World Report, even public colleges for in-state residents cost around $40,000 for a four-year education.  For families living paycheck to paycheck, saving up for even state school can be a daunting challenge. 
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Education, no matter the age of the student, should not come with debt that makes a real retirement unattainable.  Government at all levels should be doing more to ensure that older Americans can provide education for themselves and their family without risking their golden years. 

​Evan Carmen, Esq. is the Assistant Director for Aging Policy at the B’nai B’rith International Center for Senior Services. He holds a B.A. from American University in political science and a J.D. from New York Law School.  Prior to joining B’nai B’rith International he worked in the Office of Presidential Correspondence for the Obama White House, practiced as an attorney at Covington and Burling, LLP, worked as an aide for New York City Council Member Tony Avella and interned for Congressman Gary Ackerman’s office. Click here to read more from Evan Carmen.​​