A French-Jewish group called for legal action against a senior Muslim cleric in Toulouse who in a sermon recited antisemitic religious passages and predicted Israel’s destruction.

On Wednesday, the France chapter of the B’nai B’rith group condemned on Twitter the statements that Mohamed Tatai, the imam of the newly inaugurated Grand Mosque of Toulouse and the leader of an interfaith dialogue group, delivered on Dec. 15.

Tatai recited a Muslim text, called a Hadith, stating that on Judgment Day, the Muslims will kill the Jews.

The Prophet Mohammed “told us about the final and decisive battle: ‘Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him – except for the Gharqad tree, which is one of the trees of the Jews,'” he said.

He added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was “afraid that Israel would not live longer than 76 years – as is written in the prophecies.” He then said that an Israeli journalist, whom he did not name, said the 2016 funeral of President Shimon Peres was “the funeral of Israel.'”

JTA was not able to verify or locate either of the quotes referenced by Tatai.

The video of the Arabic-language sermon was posted in December on the YouTube channel of the Grand Mosque of Toulouse. The Middle East Media Research Institute translated the video and posted it on its website. B’nai B’rith France President Philippe Meyer on Wednesday posted the URL to the MEMRI translation, adding: “Outraged by the anti-Semitic rhetoric and prophecies on Israel’s demise.”

Such rhetoric cannot serve as the basis for “constructing Islam in France,” Meyer added. “Such incitement to hate must be punished.”

Tatai is the president of the Circle for Civil Dialogue, a nonprofit whose mission is to “facilitate dialogue between citizens on a social-cultural level, educationally and through sports.” On Saturday he led the inauguration ceremony of the city’s new and largest mosque, a $7.5 million building, where he serves as the most prominent imam.

During the inauguration ceremony, which included the release of white doves, Tatai said the mosque will serve “to instill the values of peace” and as a “bulwark against extremism.” In light of the sermon, Meyer said the imam’s talk of tolerance was “unacceptable doublespeak.”

In 2012, a jihadist killed four Jews — a rabbi and three children — at a Jewish school in Toulouse. 

The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council because of its bias against Israel.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, jointly announced the pullout on Tuesday evening.

“The Human Rights Council is an exercise in shameless hypocrisy,” Pompeo told the media at the State Department.
Haley said the decision came after her “good faith” effort to reform the body was obstructed by others.

The body “was not worthy of its name,” she said.

The decision split those who, like Haley and Pompeo, said the council’s negative focus on Israel rendered it irrelevant and others, including human rights groups and Jewish lawmakers, who said the U.S. presence was an important voice calling out abuses around the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the departure “courageous.”

“The U.S. decision to leave this prejudiced body is an unequivocal statement that enough is enough,” he said in a statement.

Two human rights advocacy groups with close ties to mainstream Jewish groups, Human Rights First and the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, joined a letter sent to Pompeo criticizing the Trump administration for leaving the council.

“Forfeiting the U.S. seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council only serves to empower actors on the council, like Russia and China, that do not share American values on the preeminence of universal human rights,” said the letter initiated by Freedom House.

In addition to the body’s disproportionate focus on Israel, successive U.S. administrations have objected to the presence of human rights abusers on the council.

Haley, warning earlier this month of the likelihood of a U.S. withdrawal, said the presence of noted abusers was a sticking point.

“Being a member of this council is a privilege, and no country who is a human rights violator should be allowed a seat at the table,” she said.

Current members of the council noted for their oppressive policies include Saudi Arabia, China and Venezuela.

The George W. Bush administration refused to join the council when it was established in 2006 as a successor to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations at the time, pushed for the replacement body in part to address similar concerns about the commission, but the council soon replicated the pattern of emphasizing criticism of Israel and allowing abusers to join. The U.N. General Assembly selects countries to serve three-year terms on the Human Rights Council.

The Obama administration joined the council, arguing that its presence was a more effective means of defending Israel on the council and of addressing human rights abuses elsewhere.

Some pro-Israel groups have pressed for a U.S. departure from the council because of its excesses. Others have criticized the council but quietly supported a continued U.S. presence to maintain U.S. influence as a counter to the anti-Israel agenda.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center welcomed the departure.

“We applaud Ambassador Haley’s move and urge other democracies should follow the U.S. lead and leave the UNHRC as well,” it said in a statement.


B’nai B’rith International, which like the Wiesenthal Center is a U.N.-recognized nongovernmental organization, did not praise the departure in its statement but said it should serve as a “wake-up call.”

“The United States’ decision to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council presents the international organization with an important opportunity for dramatic and urgently needed reform, as the steady politicization of the body has rendered it largely irrelevant at best and a destructive actor at worst,” B’nai B’rith said. “Perhaps the U.S. withdrawal from the UNHRC will serve as a wake-up call for all U.N. agencies to begin a process of systemic reform, in order to return the organization to its original mission and principles of equity and fairness.”

Human Rights Watch said the departure was sacrificing an important U.S. voice against abuse in order to defend Israel.

“The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Human Rights Council is a sad reflection of its one-dimensional human rights policy in which the US defends Israeli abuses from criticism above all else,” it said in a statement. “By walking away, the US is turning its back not just on the UN, but on victims of human rights abuses around the world, including in Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Myanmar. Now other governments will have to redouble their efforts to ensure that the council addresses the world’s most serious human rights problems.”

At least two Jewish Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives spoke out against the departure while noting the council’s bias.

“The United Nations Human Rights Council ignores some of the most egregious human rights abuses in the world, and its membership includes notorious human rights violators,” said Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., the senior Democrat on the House Middle East subcommittee. “The council also wrongly and obsessively focuses on our ally Israel. Unfortunately, none of that will change if we are not at the table to lead the reform efforts.”

Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the top Democratic appropriator in the House, said the departure was another example of President Donald Trump’s isolationism.

“By leaving UNHRC, we will not improve its behavior, rather the U.S. will lose its ability to influence the foreign body’s agenda and retreat from its role as a world leader on human rights,” Lowey said in a statement.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the Middle East subcommittee, praised the decision.
​
“For far too long, the council has been a platform used by the world’s worst human rights violators to shield themselves from criticism of their abysmal records while attempting to isolate and delegitimize the democratic Jewish State of Israel,” said Ros-Lehtinen, who has long counseled withdrawal from and defunding of the UNHRC.

 To effectively confront the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, one must identify its true objective:  the end of Israel’s existence.  Look no further than the words of the movement’s founder, Omar Barghouti, who has publicly declared that, “Most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine.  No Palestinian…will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”
 
Barghouti has also repeatedly compared the State of Israel to the Third Reich, calling Gaza a “concentration camp” and speaking of “Israel’s final solution” against the Palestinians.
 
BDS leader Lara Kiswani has amplified Barghouti’s rhetoric, stating, “I think the end-all of BDS is to weaken Israel, to isolate Israel, and give the global community a role in the liberation of Palestine and support the resistance on the ground in Palestine…We’re resisting colonialism in Palestine, and colonialism entails all of occupied Palestine, from Haifa, to Jerusalem, to Ramallah.”
 
Or, as Anna Baltzer, a BDS activist, succinctly put it, “We need to wipe out Israel.”
 
What do we make of a movement aimed at liquidating the Jewish state? Just as we must be clear about the movement’s intentions, we must be equally clear that the aims and practices of BDS are anti-Semitic.
 
According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition, tenets of anti-Semitism include, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination [such as] by claiming the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” as BDS regularly does. The IHRA definition is based on Natan Sharansky’s “3D test” for differentiating legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism:  demonization, delegitimization, and double standards, all of which BDS engages in.
 
Clearly, the BDS movement is rife with anti-Semitism.  And yet they depict their agenda as one merely geared toward Palestinian independence and quality of life.  The case they present to the world, and particularly university students who are often captivated by the BDS message, is one of peace and justice for a persecuted Palestinian people who have been brutally repressed by a colonial occupier.
 
In truth, though, BDS is far from pro-peace. The BDS movement actually rejects the peace process, having dismissed nearly every peace effort and having eschewed any degree of Palestinian responsibility or accountability for the conflict. Rather than promote peace, BDS works toward the dismantling of the Jewish state.  And rather than encourage compromise, BDS fosters Israel’s isolation. While progressives tend to reject isolation where Cuba or Iran is concerned, their application of a profound double standard against Israel absolves them of any worries about the efficacy or morality of isolation as a strategy.
 
The IHRA working definition is one of the strongest tools available to us in exposing BDS for what it is. This document, which is tremendously helpful in explaining and educating about anti-Semitism and anti-Israel hatred, has been formally adopted by a organization whose 31 member-states include the United States, Canada, Israel, Argentina, and the vast majority of European Union countries.
 
B’nai B’rith strongly advocated for a European Parliament resolution on anti-Semitism that promotes the use of the IHRA definition. The measure passed the Parliament with a large majority last year. It is crucial that the IHRA and similar documents, such as the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s working definition and the U.S. State Department fact sheet on anti-Semitism, should be circulated as widely as possible so that educators and students alike, as well as politicians and journalists, can better understand the problem of anti-Semitism and see how BDS anti-Israel polemics far exceed the boundaries of legitimate policy criticism.
 
In February some members of the European Parliament invited Omar Barghouti to appear at the Parliament for a conference, promoting his pro-BDS agenda.  Jewish organizations wrote a letter to the President of the Parliament protesting the Barghouti visit and condemning his rhetoric as anti-Semitic hate speech. In cooperation with the Parliament’s Working Group on Anti-Semitism, Jewish groups organized a counter-conference during the Barghouti visit and more recently worked together to strike down an attempt by the far-left GUE party to include an endorsement of BDS in a resolution on Gaza.
 
In the United States, the primary battleground is university campuses, where BDS is the cause du jour.  Members of the Student Association at George Washington University, for example, recently passed a resolution during a secret meeting that called for the campus to divest from all-things-Israel, and accused the Jewish nation of being an apartheid state. The resolution also charged the university with violating international law by profiting from investments in Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Caterpillar, companies that do business with Israel.  Similarly, Barnard College students voted two months ago in favor of a referendum asking the Student Government Association to write a letter to the administration asking them to divest from eight companies that “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.”
 
Jewish groups are promoting legislation that would encourage campus officials to use accepted working definitions of anti-Semitism in determining whether anti-Semitism has occurred, but are facing resistance from free speech advocates who feel that such a use of a working definition would curtail debate about the Middle East.  Widening the dissemination of the IHRA working definition and other definitions remains a priority, because there is so little awareness of the fact that the demonization and delegitimization of Israel is a manifestation of anti-Semitism.
 
BDS in the United States is of course not limited to campuses; it has exhibited itself among national churches such as the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and the United Church of Christ, both of whom have passed resolutions to boycott and divest from companies deemed “complicit” in Israel’s policies regarding the Palestinians. It is noteworthy that hearings on these resolutions routinely feature classic anti-Semitic tropes, such as slanderous accusations at the PCUSA hearing that Israel is subjecting Palestinians to “biblical scale enslavement” and poisoning Palestinian livestock.  While these BDS resolutions are clearly informed by leftist politics, it is crucial to highlight the role that anti-Semitic propaganda plays in the arguments that bolster these policy measures. We must make clear, to clergy and parishioners alike, the crucial principle affirmed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe:  that no political position, cause, or grievance can ever justify anti-Semitism. Moreover, as some of the debates over BDS resolutions have clearly demonstrated, the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state is often none other than a pretext for the hatred of Jews themselves.
 
B’nai B’rith has supported legislation in the U.S. Congress, the Combating BDS Act of 2017, that would allow a state or local government to prohibit investment of its assets in, or restrict contracting with, entities that engage in BDS. In states around the U.S., legislatures are passing laws that take a stand against companies that participate in discriminatory boycotts against Israel.  The more that governments, industries, and international organizations that adopt accepted working definitions of anti-Semitism and reject, through doctrine, legislation, or practice, discriminatory tactics aimed at weakening and ultimately eliminating Israel, the more momentum the anti-BDS effort will gain.  We are also backing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which directs the U.S. Department of Education to use the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism when determining if incidents of harassment or discrimination that are potentially in violation of U.S. anti-discrimination law were motivated by anti-Semitism.  And we continue to press for the appointment of a State Department special envoy on anti-Semitism who could focus the spotlight more brightly on the global problem.
 
We can also direct greater scrutiny to the connections between BDS and known terrorist organizations.  As reported in Tablet magazine this month, the Virginia-based U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, which serves as the American umbrella group of the BDS movement, facilitates tax-exempt donations to a coalition that includes groups designated by the U.S. State Department as terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The U.S. Campaign sponsors a group called the Palestinian BDS National Committee, or BNC, which serves as the Palestinian arm of BDS and which encompasses these terrorist organizations.  How many political leaders or university educators know about these terrorist links?  We need a concerted effort to raise awareness among key officials.
 
In Europe, BDS on campus varies from country to country. It is very much a problem in the United Kingdom, for example, while in other EU countries students don’t face the same challenges.  On the political level, however, more and more leaders on the center-left and radical left have openly supported boycotts of the Jewish state. They often instrumentalize human rights and international law to condemn Israel, in doing so merging the government, the state, and the Jewish people. Their criticisms frequently employ anti-Semitic stereotypes of power, manipulation, and dual loyalty to justify the array of slanders they direct at the Jewish state, such as apartheid, war crimes, genocide, Nazi tactics, etc.
 
Compounding the problem is the fact that the United Nations itself has compiled a blacklist of 206 companies currently operating in the West Bank. These businesses, thanks to the imprimatur of the UN Human Rights Council and a report it commissioned in 2016, are now ripe for targeting by BDS, as the movement aims to increase pressure over settlements.  But as is the case with EU regulations directing member-states to label products imported from the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem, the focus on settlements itself is a gateway to larger boycotts of Israeli goods. Once Israel becomes identified in the public consciousness as a problem country, then all of its products become suspect.  Governments and businesses can easily become more reluctant to engage economically with Israel for fear of censure or stigma. Thus both the UN and the EU, whether wittingly or not, whether motivated by nefarious intentions or not, are fueling the momentum of the BDS movement and its larger goals.
 
Earlier this month a significant breakthrough occurred in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where the state intelligence agency declared BDS a “new variation of anti-Semitism” in its May report. This was the first case of a German domestic intelligence agency labeling BDS as anti-Semitic and a security threat. Their findings severely undercut the arguments of those who would have the public believe that BDS innocently represents the pursuit of peace and justice.
 
To be clear, we must resist the urge to paint all BDS supporters with the broad brushstroke of anti-Semitism.  A college student intent on fighting for peace in the Middle East, however informed he may or may not be, is not by his mere association with BDS, necessarily an anti-Semite. But it is nonetheless true that the core mission of the BDS movement, as articulated by its founders and leaders – the eradication of the Jewish state – is an anti-Semitic one.  BDS supporters who cast their lot with the movement need to understand its nefarious objectives and tactics and decide whether they will be party to them.
 
The BDS strategy poses a great challenge to international NGOs, who find ourselves thrust into an emotionally heated debate that is detached from facts and in which disinformation is the ultimate means-justifier. Facts are routinely countered with falsehoods; reasoning is met with bogus claims of propaganda-mongering or allegations of intimidation aimed at silencing the pro-Palestinian side’s right to free speech. But when the facts are on your side, there is no substitute for bringing those truths to light – for educating an incompletely informed public about Israel’s record as the only democratic country in the Middle East, one in which the rights of women, minorities, and LGBT persons are respected and the right of all religions to worship at their holy sites is protected.
 
One way in which B’nai B’rith and other organizations have spread the pro-Israel narrative is by bringing groups of influence-shapers to the Jewish state to give the visitors a first-hand view of the realities of Israel’s extraordinary security predicament as well as the refreshingly ordinary rhythm of daily life in the Jewish state. During a B’nai B’rith-led visit to Israel by a delegation of members of the European Parliament, we took the legislators to a plastics factory in the West Bank. The manager of the factory stared the visitors in the eye and made the case against BDS as movingly and persuasively as almost anyone can.  He told them:
 
“I employ about 60 workers here – 20 Israelis and 40 Palestinians. We pay everyone the same salary, as required by Israeli law.  We eat lunch together; we celebrate Muslim and Jewish holidays together with our families.  Don’t boycott me.  If you boycott me, you are boycotting the hope.”
 
The loss of Palestinian jobs, the loss of peace and cooperation, the loss of hope – these are some of the casualties of BDS. Our job is to make the case that there is a better path than economic destruction, anti-Semitism, and anti-Israel hatred.  We are faced with many obstacles in our effort, but with tools at our disposal, the facts at our side, and allies behind us, we have and will continue to make progress toward our goal of exposing and ultimately overcoming BDS.

B'nai B'rith International submitted the following letter to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen condemning the White House's "zero tolerance" policy toward families seeking asylum in the United States.


June 18, 2018
 
The Honorable Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
Washington, D.C. 20530
 
The Honorable Kirstjen M. Nielsen
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528
 
Dear Attorney General Sessions and Secretary Nielsen:
 
On behalf of B’nai B’rith International and its more than 100,000 members and supporters, we write to strongly denounce the “zero tolerance” policy recently employed by the U.S. administration.  This policy tears apart families, many seeking asylum, as they attempt to cross the border into the United States.  It subverts the longstanding values of our nation and endangers the safety and wholeness of thousands of families.
 
The American Jewish community well understands the plight of immigrants fleeing violence and oppression in hope of a better life. We believe that how the United States treats its newest arrivals reflects on the values and ideals of our country.  We feel that removing children from their parents is an unconscionable practice that inflicts unnecessary trauma and health risks on families.  No family should have to endure this.
 
Not only is the policy of separating families a cruel punishment for families; it exacerbates existing challenges in our immigration system.  The practice compounds the backlog of deportation cases and legal challenges in federal courts; crowds our detention facilities and shelters with thousands more immigrants; and needlessly endangers the lives of more children.
 
Founded by immigrants to the U.S. fleeing persecution abroad, B’nai B’rith sympathizes with new immigrants to our country and the many struggles they face.  We are therefore committed to a compassionate immigration system that reflects the crucial values of family unity and justice.  In the name of those American values, we urge you to immediately rescind the “zero tolerance” policy.
 
Respectfully,

​Gary P. Saltzman                                                         Daniel S. Mariaschin
President                                                                      Executive Vice President and CEO

Although Argentina backed out of a friendly soccer game against Israel, thereby giving the Palestinians a minor victory, it was obvious that the Palestinians had not alienated the world against Israel. It’s true that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encountered criticism of measures against Gazans who attempt to infiltrate into the country and send rockets and fuel-filled kites into areas near the border, but on the whole the body language of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May said a lot for Netanyahu’s ability to win friends and influence people.

■ DESPITE THE cancellation of the soccer game, a large front-page advertisement in Thursday’s Jerusalem Post announcing a Jerusalem Day of Prayer for all Nations marking the June 7, 1967, reunification of Jerusalem, was signed by numerous Christian clergy from around the world, including Norberto Carlini of Argentina; Angus Buchan and Graham Power of South Africa, which has recalled its ambassador; and Ismail Serinkin of Turkey.

■ THE PREVIOUS day, when all the hue and cry about the cancellation of the game was headlined in electronic and digital media reports, also happened to be National Unity Day in Israel, but the only real unity was against Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev, who was widely regarded as the spoiler of what would have been a pleasurable experience for soccer fans.

If the game had taken place in Haifa as originally planned, the money wasted and the ensuing frustrations and anger might have been avoided. The Palestinians didn’t start making noise about the game before the shift of venue, which was yet another brinkmanship attempt by Regev.

■ IN COMMENTING on nationwide disappointment, President Reuven Rivlin said that even his grandchildren (who presumably had tickets) were upset. Rivlin, an avid soccer fan, would have had to watch the game on television because, as head of state, he cannot publicly desecrate the Sabbath.

■ BY THE way, Israel is not the only country in which politics intrude on sport. At the beginning of this week, Sweden and Iceland each announced that the political leaders of their respective countries would not attend the opening next week of the FIFA World Cup Games, in protest against the current political situation in Russia and its tense relationship with the European Union. The absence of Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven and Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir along with members of their respective governments will not affect the attendance of Swedish and Icelandic soccer fans, who will be in Russia to cheer on their teams.

INTERNATIONAL JEWISH Unity Day 2018 was launched at the President’s Residence on Wednesday. Generally known as the Jerusalem Unity Prize in memory of murdered yeshiva students Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, it was established as a joint initiative of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, the families of the three boys, and Gesher, the Jewish outreach organization, to commemorate the outpouring of national and international solidarity after the boys were kidnapped and murdered by terrorists.

As the week of mourning was coming to an end in the summer of 2014, Barkat and the families searched for the appropriate way to nurture the unity that so characterized the Jewish people during that fateful period between fearful uncertainty and tragedy.

After much thought, they came up with the idea of the Jerusalem Unity Prize and Unity Day to commemorate and promote that sense of togetherness and hope that was so tangible during those 18 days from the kidnapping to the discovery of the boys’ bodies.

Prizewinners were the Jewish Unity Project, Florida; Runners Without Borders; TEC Center (Technology, Education and Cultural Diversity); and Koolulam, which encourages mega community singing groups. A lifetime achievement award was also given to Taglit-Birthright, in recognition of what it has done to connect assimilated young Jews with their Jewish heritage and with Israel.

■ BRITAIN’S MOST highly publicized transgender couple, Hannah Winterbourne, who was born a man and is now a woman, and Jake Graf, who was born a woman and is now a man, are currently in Israel to participate in the Pride Parade taking place Friday in Tel Aviv, where gay pride flags and banners decorate commercial and residential premises throughout the inner city.

Winterbourne, 31, is a captain in the British Army and served in Afghanistan while still a man. Graf, 40, is an actor who used to be an actress. The couple married in March of this year, and is having a delayed honeymoon at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv.

They were visited at the hotel by British Ambassador David Quarrey and his spouse, Aldo Henriquez, who are also participating in the Pride Parade and will wave to the crowd from a British Embassy float.

■ The transgender couple’s honeymoon visit is being covered by Britain’s Daily Mail, which reported that the hotel upgraded them and gave them a beautiful suite overlooking the sea. While in Israel, the newlyweds intend to spend a lot of time on the beach.

■ STRANGE THOUGH it seems in the Jewish homeland, the bulk of the Israeli media is not sufficiently interested in the Jewish world to have a full time Jewish affairs reporter. The point was made by Benny Teitelbaum, the Jewish world reporter for the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Teitelbaum, who received a Certificate of Merit at the annual B’nai B’rith World Center- Jerusalem Award for Journalism Recognizing Excellence in Diaspora Reportage, said at the awards ceremony in the Konrad Adenauer Conference Center in Jerusalem’s Mishkenot Sha’ananim that he met up in New York with Zvika Klein, who covers Diaspora affairs for Makor Rishon, and the two had discussed the possible formation of a Diaspora Affairs unit within the Journalists Association in Israel to facilitate discussion forums where they could exchange views. It didn’t come to fruition, because there were hardly any journalists covering that beat on a regular basis.

To illustrate the importance of covering Diaspora affairs, Teitelbaum cited his own entry in the B’nai B’rith competition, where he showed in a television program that even though Israel encourages Jewish immigration from France, it refuses to accept the qualifications of French professionals, especially doctors and nurses. There has been some progress toward recognition since his program was aired, but not enough. He told the story of a French doctor who had come to Israel every year for 20 years to volunteer in the IDF Medical Corps, where his professionalism had been appreciated. But when he came on aliya, his qualifications were not recognized, even though they’re recognized all over Europe.

Yair Sherki of the Israel News Company, whose series Brooklyn – The Holy Borough, dealing with the lifestyles of the ultra-Orthodox community of Brooklyn, whose members, unlike their Israeli counterparts, he said, get up at 4 a.m. to study and to pray and then go to work in various Jewish and secular professions, won the award in the broadcast media section.

In his acceptance speech, he noted that while the annual Celebrate Israel Parade was taking place on Fifth Avenue, elsewhere in New York there was a mega anti-Zionist gathering organized by Satmar Hassidim.

Sherki had conducted nearly all his interviews in Hebrew, and it was interesting to note that even the ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists with whom he spoke replied in Sephardi Hebrew and not the Ashkenazi Hebrew of the shtetl. Sephardi Hebrew can be categorized as Zionist Hebrew.

Amotz Asa-El, who writes regular “Middle Israel” columns in The Jerusalem Post and The Jerusalem Report, and who has written for major publications in the United States and England, spoke of the growing schism between Israeli and Diaspora Jewry and between different factions in Israel. The text of his acceptance speech will be published in the upcoming edition of the Report, where his winning series originally appeared.

Keynote speaker for the evening was Elliott Abrams, former US deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy and currently senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies on the Council for Foreign Relations.

Abrams said that while it was a pleasure for him to be in Jerusalem, it was a pleasure that most American Jews have never had – “not once.” American Jews and Israel are drifting apart, he said, adding that it is incorrect to say that American Jews are infused with a love for Israel. In fact, it was never so, he added, comparing American Jews’ visits to Israel with those of other countries. Seventy percent of Canadian Jews have visited, he said, 80% of Australian Jews, and 95% of British Jews, while the ratio of American Jews was only 40%.

He suggested that it is wrong to sentimentalize and exaggerate American levels of affection for Israel. American Jews and Israelis live very different lives, he said. “Israelis are from Mars, and American Jews are from Venus.”

He also spoke of the waning sense of Jewish identity and Jewish peoplehood in America, where some Jews define themselves as “Jews of no religion” and are not raising their children as Jews.

He doubted whether such attitudes were influenced by Israeli government policies.

“A change of government would not affect American Jewish support for Israel,” he opined.

As for Israel’s obligation to world Jewry, “Your first obligation to world Jewry is to survive and thrive,” Abrams declared.

US President Donald Trump has steadfastly backed Israel at the UN, moved the embassy to Jerusalem and withdrawn from the Iranian nuclear deal.

As a result, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised him effusively.

But this, according to Netanyahu critics on the Left both in Israel and the US, is a mistake. They argue that Trump will not be there forever – in fact, he could be turned out of office in just over two years’ time – and that Netanyahu’s embrace of a deeply divisive Republican president will hurt Israel if a Democratic president comes next in line.

But Elliott Abrams, who held senior positions in the White House’s National Security Council under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, thinks otherwise.

“You have a party in the United States that is wildly pro-Israel,” Abrams said of the Republican Party. “It would be the sin of ingratitude not to show appreciation. And it is not just Trump, it is the Republicans.”

Abrams, in the country to deliver the keynote address last Tuesday night at the B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem Award for Journalism Recognizing Excellence in Diaspora Reportage, said that his message to Netanyahu would not be to “step back from Trump.”

Rather, he said during an interview in the lobby of the King David Hotel, his message is to Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, Zionist Union head Avi Gabbay, and opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog: “You should embrace the Democratic Party; that is your job. The Republicans do not need to be told to be pro-Israel; the Democrats do. Why don’t you do that?” 

Abrams, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, said that there are pro-Israel stalwarts in the Democratic Party, people like California’s Nancy Pelosi, Maryland’s Steny Hoyer, and New York’s Chuck Schumer.

The problem, he said, is that they are all in their sixties and seventies, and there is not an equally ardent pro-Israel cadre among the marquee Democratic names in their thirties and forties.

Turning again to Lapid, Gabbay and Herzog, Abrams said that they all have relationships with Schumer and Pelosi. “But do they have a relationship with the next generation? I don’t know the answer to that. But these are the people who have to go talk to [up-and-coming Democratic leaders] Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom. That is their job. Their job is not to yell at Netanyahu for being close to the Republicans; their job is to get close to the Democrats.”

That, however, is no easy chore. Poll after poll shows that grassroots support for Israel in the Republican Party outpaces that in the Democratic Party, even though Jews still vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Abrams said that the polls – both Pew and Gallup – show about a 30-point difference between the parties’ general memberships when it comes to Israel, with the Republicans far more supportive.

Abrams characterized this trend as a “problem,” and one for which there is no “magic wand.”

He said that there are two types of Democrats moving away from Israel: Jews and non-Jews.

Regarding the non-Jews, Abrams pointed out that Israel has been governed by a right-of-center government for the last 17 years.

“It is no great shock that such a government will get along better with a Republican rather than Democratic administration,” he said.

“Why is this a problem?” he asked. “Because there is a message sent by Bush and Trump that Israel is terrific. The message sent by [president Barack] Obama was not that Israel is terrific. It was about the need to create daylight; it was that we have a lot of criticism, and that if you are on the Left in the United States, don’t be so enthusiastic about Israel.”

Abrams said that some believe that the situation would improve if there were a left-of center government in Israel. But he has his doubts, and points out that Lapid, Gabbay, Herzog and their supporters were largely supportive of recent IDF action on the Gaza border and in Syria.

“I think that Americans on the Left would be surprised by the defense policies of those parties [Yesh Atid and Zionist Union],” he said. “They are not going to change much [from current defense policies].

So the notion that if there were a center-left government here, the American Left would immediately become pro-Israel, just does not seem to be correct.”

The Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, which has a decidedly left-wing outlook, is now a significant part of the Democratic Party, Abrams said. “The Left around the world attacks Israel, so why is it shocking that the Left in the United States is part of that?” The challenge, Abrams maintained, is to reach those constituencies that are part of the Democratic Party but are not squarely on the Left, such as Hispanics, Koreans and Indian Americans.

“You are not going to turn the Left pro-Israel,” he maintained.

“But you may be able turn people in the party who are not really on the Left, and who are swing communities.”

He said Israel may have an open door to the Hispanic and Korean communities because they include large numbers of Evangelical Christians, and there are many in the Indian community who are small businessmen and professionals with traditional values, with whom Israel’s arguments may resonate more loudly.

Abrams said that among both Jewish and non-Jewish Democrats, it is unlikely that any one policy change by the government – such as a settlement freeze – would fundamentally change attitudes. If the Netanyahu government would make such a move, and a week later face riots on the Gaza border and use lethal force, “no one would talk about the settlement freeze,” he argued.

There is, however, another layer to the story among Jews inside the Democratic Party moving away from Israel. With them, Abrams said, Israel’s policies toward non-Orthodox streams of Judaism could have an impact in either accelerating or slowing down the erosion of their support.

“To the extent we are talking about Jews, it would help if Israel were more respectful of non-Orthodox parts of the Jewish community,” he said, referring primarily to the conversion issue and the issue of egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall. “This is an old argument, but it does alienate some groups in the Diaspora.”

Asked to identify where he fears this alienation could play out, Abrams said that people might become generally less enthusiastic about Israel, stop traveling here, and stop being pro-Israel activists in their own communities.

Abrams, however, rejected the claim, often made by critics of the government, that Israel’s policies are distancing young Jews from Israel.

“The larger problem is the percentage of the Jewish community that is leaving the Jewish community entirely, and that has nothing to do with Israeli policies,” Abrams said.

This trend has to do with America life, with assimilation and intermarriage, and not one Israeli policy or another. Children of Jewish parents who intermarry, whose spouses do not convert, and who do not raise their children as Jews – their children will leave the Jewish community completely, Abrams said.

“In fact, they already have. The couple has left the Jewish community, and their children will do the same, and this has nothing to do with settlements and occupied territory  – it is an American phenomenon.”

Abrams said that the bigger questions Israelis must ask themselves, however, is what obligations the country now has, since it’s what the US was for the last century, and Europe for a few centuries prior – namely, the center of world Jewish life.

“What responsibilities does that bring?” he asked.

On security matters, he maintained, Israel’s primary obligation is to its own survival.

“But on questions of religion, where you are dealing with Jews across the world, I think Israel has to ask itself what is its relationship – as the center of the Jewish world – going to be to the Diaspora and non-Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora?” Abrams said that he would like to see an Israeli campaign to raise the number of non-Orthodox students in non-Orthodox Jewish schools in the Diaspora, and to do more to promote Hebrew study around the world.

“What if you had places in a variety of locations in the Diaspora where the Israeli government paid people to learn Hebrew?” he said.

“It is an idea.”

If, in the past – when Israel was smaller and much weaker – the question often posed was what is the Diaspora’s relationship and responsibility toward Israel, Abrams now asks the question from the other side.

“Now what is needed,” he said, “is for Israelis to start thinking about their relationship to the Diaspora in the coming decades.”

Symbolic victories – and losses – are important

Elliott Abrams met The Jerusalem Post a day before the Argentinean national team and star Lionel Messi sent much of the country into the doldrums because of their decision not to play an exhibition game here Saturday night.

Nevertheless, what Abrams said about the upcoming visit of Prince William and the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem resonates loudly in the context of the Argentinean team’s decision.

Prince William’s visit and the US Embassy move are “symbolic victories that send a message of Israel’s “acceptance and permanence,” Abrams said.

“You can live without symbolic victories,” he explained. “But given that there is a global movement against you, these symbolic victories contribute to the cause. Yes, you lived 70 years without the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and without a British Royal, but you are under attack here by Iran, a number of terrorist groups, and by the Left around the world; so you need political victories, symbolic victories, and friends.

“So when these victories come, when you win a song contest, it is better than losing because you are Israeli. And when the royal family comes, it is a big deal. It is better than the royal family refusing to set foot here officially.”

Prince William’s visit and the embassy move help to “normalize” Israel, Abrams argued.

“There is a still an effort to say that Israel is a criminal enterprise, that its creation was an offense, that it is not permanent and not acceptable. And all of these symbolic moves say, ‘No, we reject all of that.’” Abrams cited his mentor George Shultz, a former US secretary of state, as saying in 2003 that the US Embassy needed to move to Jerusalem because “as long as it is in Tel Aviv, it seems as if we are just camping out.”

Asked what Shultz meant, Abrams replied: “It looks as if you are temporary, your presence is temporary, your role in Jerusalem is temporary, so our embassy has to be temporary. So now we are saying, ‘No.’ There are daily attacks on this country’s legitimacy; these victories are not meaningless.”

Unfortunately, then, neither are the losses.

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Kenneth Marcus, a leading advocate against campus antisemitism, to serve as assistant secretary at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education.

Legislators approved Marcus with a party-line vote of 50 to 46, concluding a nearly eight-month confirmation process marked by Democratic opposition. He will assume his post under Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, replacing acting OCR chief Candice Jackson, who has also faced strong criticism from Democratic lawmakers.

Marcus previously assumed the same role under President George W. Bush in 2003, before serving as staff director of the US Commission on Civil Rights between 2004 and 2008. Under his guidance, the OCR extended protections afforded under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to members of groups that “exhibit both ethnic and religious characteristics, such as Arab Muslims, Jewish Americans and Sikhs.”

He continued his advocacy after leaving government and founding the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a Jewish civil rights group, in 2012.

“This is a momentous occasion not just in the fight against antisemitism, but against all forms of prejudice and hate,” said Alyza Lewin, LDB’s chief operating officer, following Marcus’ confirmation. “I cannot imagine anyone better qualified than Kenneth for this position.”

His advancement was similarly praised as “a new chapter” by Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who expressed confidence that the US Department of Education “will start being responsive to antisemitic incidents that impact Jewish students on our nation’s campuses.”

“There are many talented lawyers, but Ken Marcus also brings a high level of ethics to his task,” Cooper told The Algemeiner. “We wish him well.”

Eric Fusfield, director of legislative affairs at B’nai B’rith International, likewise commended Marcus for being a strong “voice in the fight against antisemitism and other forms of bigotry and hatred on university campuses.”

While calling the partisan vote “unfortunate,” Fusfield indicated that he expects Marcus “will do a lot of positive things.”

“If there are points of disagreement between him and the Jewish community, we’ll make our voice heard, but I think we’re in a good place to start with, in large part because there is no greater expert on the issue of antisemitism,” he added. “We’ve had so much difficulty explaining to university educators and others exactly what antisemitism is, and we don’t need to explain that to Ken Marcus, because he’s written a book on the subject.”

Marcus — who authored Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America in 2010 and The Definition of Anti-Semitism in 2015 — has frequently spoken out against what he described as rising antisemitism on American college campuses, which he blamed in part on the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Some tactics used by BDS supporters — including harassment, vandalism, and even assault — represent “a violation of the civil rights of Jewish students,” he argued in September 2013.

Yet Marcus warned last year that the OCR “has been paralyzed” when it comes to addressing antisemitism.

“The reason for OCR’s powerlessness is that it is ill-equipped to recognize antisemitism when it sees it,” he argued, before endorsing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA), a bill that calls on the Department of Education to adopt the definition of antisemitism put forth by the State Department in 2010.

These positions have helped bolster opposition to Marcus from pro-BDS groups including Jewish Voice for Peace and Palestine Legal, which claim that he seeks “to censor and chill speech supporting Palestinian rights on college campuses.”

The American Civil Liberties Union rejected Marcus on similar grounds, warning that the AAA relies on a definition of antisemitism that includes demonizing, delegitimizing, and applying double standards to Israel.

“The bill could be interpreted to prohibit vigorous campus speech, protest, and other forms of advocacy critical of Israel, which would plainly violate the First Amendment,” the ACLU argued.

Marcus has also drawn criticism from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR), a coalition of over 200 national groups that said in a February letter to senators that Marcus had failed “to articulate clear support for robust civil rights enforcement during his confirmation hearing,” and questioned his commitment to protecting undocumented, LGBTQ, and disabled students, as well as students of color.

LCCHR — which counts several Jewish organizations among its ranks — further warned that Marcus “has sought to use the OCR complaint process to chill a particular political point of view, rather than address unlawful discrimination” — referencing complaints LDB filed against alleged antisemitic harassment at three University of California campuses, which were later dismissed.
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Yet the American Jewish Committee — a founding member of the LCCHR — took exception to this characterization, noting that Marcus only argued that “some extreme criticism of Israel constitutes antisemitism,” and has “repeatedly made clear that he did not believe that … mere criticism of Israel was actionable under Title IV.”

On Jan. 18, 2015, Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor who had been in charge of investigating the 1994 bombing against the AMIA Jewish center for more than 10 years, was found dead – a bullet to the head – in his Buenos Aires apartment. Four days prior to his death, he had accused then President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, her Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and other members of her government of negotiating a pact with the Iranian regime with the goal of getting impunity for the Iranians accused of having perpetrated this heinous terrorist attack. Nisman’s death occurred just hours before his scheduled appearance before the Argentine Congress to expand on his allegations.

The circumstances surrounding his “mysterious” death made it very hard for any honest observer to believe that he had been the victim of anything other than murder. He did not have a suicidal personality, he did not leave a note (something that most suicidal people do), there were no traces of gunpowder on his hands and the location of the bullet clearly indicated that someone else had to have pulled the trigger. And yet, the initial judicial investigation – plagued with shameful irregularities – seemed to confirm the government’s claim that he had committed “suicide.”

Today, almost three and a half years after his death, there is some hope that the truth will finally come out. A Federal Chamber of Appeals has just confirmed the ruling of Justice Julian Ercolini, who – based on a credible forensic investigation by Argentina’s border police had concluded that there was sufficient evidence to establish that Nisman was indeed murdered.

The Chamber also confirmed the indictment of the security guards who were supposed to protect Nisman that night, and of Diego Lagomarsino, Nisman’s IT consultant, as an accessory to murder.

But most importantly, the Chamber concluded that Nisman’s murder was a “direct consequence” of his complaint against the former government and even though it fell short of incriminating Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (as the attorney representing Nisman’s mother had requested), it called on the judge to investigate the homicide “with the speed and seriousness that such a grave matter imposes.”
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This means that, for the first time, the investigation will focus on the obvious: that Nisman was murdered and that he was murdered because of the serious accusations he had made against the government. Now it is time to determine who ordered and executed this terrible crime. Whether the Argentine judiciary is prepared to do so remains to be seen.