(JTA) — Around the picnic tables at Whitefish City Beach on the final Shabbat eve of last month, the Montana town’s tiny Jewish community shared kosher hot dogs, veggie burgers and memories of terror. In a year when white supremacists have been ascendant, at least in their public… Read more »
Tagged anti-Semitism
American Jews overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump, poll finds
WASHINGTON (JTA) — American Jews overwhelmingly disapprove of President Donald Trump in just about every area, scoring him lower than his predecessor even on topics like Israel, where Jewish approval of Barack Obama was relatively low, according to an American Jewish Committee poll. The survey also shows a sharp… Read more »
Anti-Semitic incidents in US surging in ’17, rose by a third in ’16
(JTA) – Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States soared 86 percent in the first three months of 2017 after rising by more than one-third in 2016, according to the Anti-Defamation League. There has been a massive increase in harassment of American Jews, largely since November, and at least… Read more »
On Jews and the Holocaust, Trump signals that he finally gets it
WASHINGTON (JTA) – President Donald Trump got the memo on the Holocaust and the Jews. In a barrage of statements this week from the president and his aides, the Trump administration wants you to know, he gets it, he really gets it: The Holocaust describes a genocide committed only… Read more »
OP-ED The surge in anti-Semitism? Here’s how to stop it
(JTA) — Almost daily accounts of vandalized cemeteries, spray-painted swastikas and bomb threats to JCCs and other Jewish agencies have naturally evoked considerable alarm. Clearly, we must never reconcile ourselves to an America where this is considered normal. Yet we must not succumb to the opposite tendency to see… Read more »
Analysis: JCC bomb threats are weapons of fear
(JTA) — The “fear itself” thing? FDR was on to something. The rash of JCC bomb threats and cemetery desecrations, combined with a general sense that the country is becoming more intolerant, has Jews on edge in ways they haven’t been in years. The head of a major… Read more »
Knesset holds emergency debate about U.S. anti-Semitism
MK Nachman Shai (Zionist Camp) slammed the government on Tuesday for displaying indifference to the wave of anti-Semitism that has swept the United States in recent weeks, in contrast to Israel’s history of standing up for Jewish communities under threat in other places. “We have seen dozens of terrible… Read more »
At Las Vegas confab, Republican Jews gingerly find reasons to celebrate Trump’s presidency
LAS VEGAS (JTA) – Republican Jews have President Donald Trump to thank for their party’s renewed dominance of Washington politics. So what do they think of him? Marlyn Appelbaum paused to contemplate the question at the opening of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s confab at the Venetian resort hotel here Friday evening. Then she… Read more »
Meet the Jewish couple leading the Trump resistance
NEW YORK (JTA) — The group at the forefront of “resisting the Trump agenda” started in the middle of December with a single document circulated among friends. One that was “poorly formatted” and “full of typos,” in the words of one of its authors, Leah Greenberg. As of this week,… Read more »
OP-ED Honor the memory of Nazi victims by speaking out against anti-Semitism
(JTA) — The world comes together every Jan. 27 to remember the most devastating tragedy in history: the Shoah. We remember the victims of the Nazi regime. The loved ones lost and the shameful treatment of human life and human dignity. We also make sure to remember our history,… Read more »
After bomb threats, FBI to coordinate with JCCs in ‘new reality’
NEW YORK (JTA) — The FBI and Department of Homeland Security will be assisting local Jewish community centers in bolstering security after 16 JCCs received bomb threats on the same day. On Wednesday, officials from the FBI and Homeland Security will conduct a conference call with U.S. Jewish… Read more »
In Manuel Valls, French Jews get a presidential candidate they can trust
PARIS (JTA) — Although his country is entering one of the most dramatic election campaigns in recent memory, Isy Morgensztern had no intention of exercising his right to vote. A left-wing Ashkenazi Jewish filmmaker from Paris, Morgensztern was too disappointed with the ruling Socialists under French President Francois Hollande… Read more »
OP-ED What Jewish students can, and should, learn from Israel’s critics
(JTA) — As university professors, as committed Jews and as friends, we were puzzled by Arnold Eisen’s recent op-ed for JTA, “Jewish pride on campus is under siege. Here’s what your kids can do to fight back.” It is not because we disagree with his positions on Zionism, on Israel and Palestine,… Read more »
Is Donald Trump’s proposal to keep out anti-Semites practical — or ethical?
WASHINGTON (JTA) — How extreme does vetting need to be to keep anti-Semites from entering the United States, and is Donald Trump’s plan worth the effort? The Republican nominee’s proposal to apply an ideological test to potential immigrants is based on precedent: The United States in the last century instituted… Read more »
Why Spain is standing up to BDS — for now
(JTA) — Only last year, Spain was still the undisputed bastion for the BDS movement in Europe. Some 50 Spanish municipalities had passed resolutions in recent years endorsing BDS — an acronym for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — more than in any other European country. Relying on backing from a… Read more »
ANALYSIS After playing anti-Semitism card against Trump, Wasserman Schultz sunk by aides’ anti-Bernie emails
NEW YORK (JTA) — Just last week, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was playing the anti-Semitism card against Donald Trump. But in a startling turnaround, on the eve of her own party’s convention, it’s the South Florida congresswoman who is out as chair of the Democratic National Committee — over a… Read more »
Donald Trump’s anti-Semitism controversies: A timeline
NEW YORK (JTA) – Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is facing growing accusations that his campaign is countenancing anti-Semitism – if not encouraging it outright. Trump’s foreign policy slogan, “America First,” echoes the World War II-era noninterventionist movement championed by a notorious anti-Semite. During the height of the… Read more »
French Jews react to first screening of buzzy, irreverent comedy on anti-Semitism
PARIS (JTA) — When the French-Jewish film director Yvan Attal titled his much-hyped comedy about anti-Semitism “They Are Everywhere,” he did so in reference to how some anti-Semites feel about Jews and vice versa. But the French-language title applies in another way, too: Though the film has yet to… Read more »
Angela Merkel: ‘Anti-Semitism more widespread than we think’
Berlin (TPS) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel directly addressed contemporary anti-Semitism during the opening of an exhibition on the night of Monday, January 25. Art from the Holocaust was opened to the public at the German Historical Museum in the nation’s capital at an event commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day.… Read more »
On the streets of Paris, ADL chief glad to see yarmulkes, but senses fear
Editor’s note: This opinion piece was written on Nov. 12, one day before the horrific attacks in Paris that have left more than 120 people dead and scores wounded. NEW YORK (JTA) — I have visited Europe many times, but last week I looked at it through a new… Read more »