August 8, 2017

Notorious Holocaust denier Ernst Zndel dies in Germany

Convicted Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, who served jail time for inciting racial hatred, has died in Germany at the age of 78, local media reported on Monday.

Zündel, one of the leading figures in the denial movement, died on Saturday at his home in the southwestern spa town of Bad Wildbad, his sister Ingrid was quoted by DPA news agency as saying.

Zündel, who lived in Canada for decades before being extradited in 2005 over his anti-Semitic views, was sentenced to five years' prison by a German court in 2007 for repeatedly disputing the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis in the Second World War.

He was freed in 2010, with time spent behind bars before his trial counted as part of his sentence.


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To paraphrase Bette Davis:

You should never say bad things about the dead, only good… Ernst Zündel is dead. Good!

May his supporters and other anti-Semites (and their casual defenders) follow his lead and be nothing more than a pathetic footnote in history!

August 6, 2017

Media Matters Cristina Lpez explains how the White House uses dog whistles to appeal to the "alt-r

Media Matters’ Cristina López explains how the White House uses dog whistles to appeal to the "alt-right"

Cristina López on PRI’s The World: Dog whistles like “cosmopolitan” “allow you to appeal to a certain part of the population that it wouldn’t be OK to appeal in a general speech, like the White House press briefing. But these groups are attuned, and they are listening.”

MARCO WERMAN (HOST): It may sound a little like it falls into the category of the word "elitist," but "cosmopolitan" also has an ugly history of anti-Semitism. Nazis in Germany and Joseph Stalin both weaponized the word. Cristina López is a senior researcher at Media Matters. She's been following trends in language used by white supremacists and the "alt-right." So, what does a word like "cosmopolitan" actually signal to white supremacists, Cristina?

CRISTINA LÓPEZ: Well, like you very well said -- antisemitism has a long, ugly tradition of using cosmopolitanism as a dog whistle. And the thing about dog whistles is that they work kind of like easter eggs -- you have to know what you're looking for to find them. So, therefore, they kind of, like, land with a very specific kind of audience, but fly over the heads of everybody else. So, on a sort of speech that was meant for public consumption, like yesterday's press briefing, Stephen Miller was able to just throw in the word "cosmopolitan" and make it sound like he meant "elitist." And, when confronted by anyone, he would be able to say, you kno, "Well, no. Of course you're making this up, I am myself Jewish" or be able to get away with it. And the thing about dog whistles is that they have to work into a larger context, and the context that we have in this particular instance is that the White House in the past 24 hours has cited explicitly groups that are anti-immigrant nativist groups -- Stephen Miller cited the Center for Immigration Studies, and the White House website had the praise from the group the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, and the group NumbersUSA. These groups have been labeled hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. So, those citations that are so explicit leave very little room for interpretation to whether we should call it a dog whistle or not.

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This will inspire anti-Semitism from all directions.

August 5, 2017

(Jewish Group) Investigation finds Hillel improperly excluded from SFSU student fair

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!!

After five months of investigation, San Francisco State University officials have concluded that SF Hillel “was improperly excluded” from a campus civil rights information fair early this year.

In an email to J., a SFSU communications officer said the investigation found that, “SF Hillel was improperly excluded from the Know Your Rights Fair by the self-organized and self-appointed planning committee… The unfortunate decision by this group to exclude Hillel from the Fair represents an unacceptable breach of the University’s values, policies, and standards for inclusion and respect expected of all members of our University community.”

Concerned parties, including Hillel, were privately informed of the decision on July 21.

As detailed in a J. cover story on May 3, the dispute arose after Hillel was dropped from participating in Know Your Rights, an information fair held in February that was geared toward “vulnerable populations who may be feeling targeted in the new political climate,” according to the event web page, and which presented workshops on legal resources and immigrant rights, and tabling opportunities for student organizations.

Hillel had initially been invited to take part in the event, and staffers gladly accepted. Several days later, Hillel staffer Jason Steckler received an email: “Dear community organizer, thank you for your interest. We are at capacity.”

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Anyone, I mean, anyone, surprised?!

August 5, 2017

Synagogue vandalized in Colorado Springs neighborhood

Source: KKTV

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - A local synagogue was vandalized with messages of hate and anti-Semitism Thursday night. It happened at Temple Beit Torah, near Wahsatch and Monroe Street just north of downtown Colorado Springs.

Friday morning, neighbors near the synagogue, noticed some of their cars and homes had been spray painted overnight.

When Daniel Bushman saw this, he had to do something.

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Colorado’s Anti-Defamation League or ADL says in 2014, they had reports of about 10 incidents. In 2017 so far, they've already seen more than 60.

Read more: http://www.kktv.com/content/news/Colorado-Springs-synagogue-vandalized--438630833.html

August 4, 2017

(Jewish Group) Polish government condemns attack on Israeli soccer team

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!!

WARSAW: The Polish government said on Thursday it condemns the attack by a group of hooligans on members of the Israeli soccer club Hapoel Petah Tikva near Warsaw, which the Israeli embassy said was motivated by anti-Semitism.

Two people were injured late on Wednesday when a group of masked hooligans attacked the Israeli team after an exhibition game with the local MKS Ciechanow, some 74 km (46 miles) away from Warsaw.

“The Israeli embassy in Warsaw has been shocked and saddened by the news of another anti-Semitic incident,” Michal Sobelman, spokesman for the embassy, told Reuters.

“These ‘pseudo-fans’ not only harm good Polish-Israeli relations, but first of all they are damaging to Poland’s image abroad.”

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Perhaps another Munich in the making is coming. My guess, it will be met with a huge global "meh".

August 4, 2017

(Jewish Group) Jews and money the slur that refuses to die

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!!

The outrage directed against Kevin Myers’s depiction of women, Jews and money in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times was inevitable. At first glance, there appears little to learn from an easily recognised old-fashioned antisemitism, but dig deeper and its shabby prejudices help us to understand the language that is all too commonly used about Jews, Zionism and money, across the political spectrum.

Myers’s squalid example of blatant antisemitic language was swiftly dealt with but the premise of Jews and money and cunning remains rampant.

The antisemitic association of Jews with money is deeply embedded within British literature and culture. It is also a fundamental component of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including those that employ the word “Zionist” where the word “Jew” once appeared.

This goes back to Jews being blamed for selling out Jesus (money-changers in the temple, Judas’s 30 pieces of silver) and the notion of them bearing responsibility for his killing.

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August 2, 2017

(Jewish Group) Googles New Hate Speech Algorithm Has a Problem With Jews

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!!

Don’t you just hate how vile some people are on the Internet? How easy it’s become to say horrible and hurtful things about other groups and individuals? How this tool that was supposed to spread knowledge, amity, and good cheer is being use to promulgate hate? No need to worry anymore: Google’s on it.

Earlier this year, Silicon Valley’s overlords introduced Perspective API, the latter being nerd-speak for Application Program Interface, or a set of tools for building software. The idea behind it is simple: because it’s impossible for an online publisher to manually monitor all the comments left on its website, Perspective will use advanced machine learning to help moderators track down comments that are likely to be “toxic.” Here’s how the company describes it: “The API uses machine learning models to score the perceived impact a comment might have on a conversation.”

That’s a strange sentiment. How do you measure the perceived impact of a conversation? And how can you tell if a conversation is good or bad? The answers, in Perspective’s case, are simple: machine learning works by giving computers access to vast databases, and letting them figure out the likely patterns. If a machine read all the cookbooks published in the English language in the last 100 years, say, it would be able to tell us interesting things about how we cook, like the peculiar fact that when we serve rice we’re very likely to serve beans as well. What can machines tell us about the way we converse and about what we may find offensive? That, of course, depends on what databases you let the machines learn. In Google’s case, the machines learned the comments sections of The New York Times, the Economist, and the Guardian.



What did the machines learn? Only one way to find out. I asked Perspective to rate the following sentiment: “Jews control the banks and the media.” This old chestnut, Perspective reported, had a 10 percent chance of being perceived as toxic.

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Seems about right. History repeating.

August 1, 2017

(Jewish Group) A Dishonest Fallacy: Israels Occupation Isn't Why anti-Semitisms Spiking

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!!!

Identifying anti-Semitism and working out how to challenge and overcome it is no easy task, but in more than two decades of work and study in this field I’ve come up with one simple rule: Don’t mimic the anti-Semites you're fighting.

At least, you’d think this is a simple rule; but British writer and activist Tony Klug fell straight into this trap when he wrote recently in Haaretz (If Israel's Occupation Doesn't End, Anti-Semitism Worldwide Will Rise to Sinister Heights) of an acquaintance who, he claimed, said to him: "I thought an anti-Semite was someone who hated Jews, not someone whom Jews hated.”

I first heard Klug use this line two months ago, at a conference on Zionism and anti-Semitism held in London by the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism. You can hear Klug make the comment here, followed by some laughter and applause. (Full disclosure: I am an Associate Research Fellow of the Pears Institute, on its Advisory Group and spoke at the same conference as Klug, but I had no role in the planning or organization of that conference).

However, this wasn’t the first time I’d heard the line itself, because for many years it was one of David Irving’s favorite jokes. He would tell it in his speeches to audiences of anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, and he usually got a much bigger laugh than Klug did.

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This advice could apply to so many groups!

August 1, 2017

(Jewish Group) Israel Doesnt Cause Anti-Semitism. Anti-Semites Do

THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP!!!

Just like short skirts don’t cause rape, Islam doesn’t cause terrorism, and dark skin doesn’t cause prejudice, Israel’s policies don’t cause anti-Semitism. Do you know what causes anti-Semitism? Anti-Semites.

With all due respect to fellow UK intellectual Tony Klug, I read his op-ed (If Israel's Occupation Doesn't End, Anti-Semitism Worldwide Will Rise to Sinister Heights) attributing the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians since 1967 to a rise in global anti-Semitism with outrage.

And yes, that’s also what the occupation - which is morally and politically wrong, deprives Palestinians of human and political rights, and should be brought to just and peaceful end quickly - should provoke in all of us: outrage, protest, censure, intervention, outcry. There is certainly space for criticism, expressing concern, and outright condemnation of some of the strategies of the State of Israel without delegitimizing its sovereignty or crossing the line into anti-Semitism.

But there is a vast different between hating Israeli state policy (and recognizing that 50 years on, settlements and the occupation are seemingly indivisible from it) and hating Israelis - and all Jews. A chasm between causation and correlation when it comes to bigotry. And an ethical abyss, especially between motivation and justification for anti-Semitism. We hate many countries for what they do, but only with Israel and Jews is it somehow acceptable to hate a religion, ethnicity, and people for who they are.

As the wildly illiberal social media reaction my recent op-ed (If You Can't Say Israeli Settlers Are Civilians Too, You're Propping Up Apologists for Terror) betrayed, for many, the word “settler” is just a substitute for what it isn’t polite to write in public: Israeli or Jew (and probably a proxy for the pronoun they might prefer - “you".) When you buy into a logic that believes murdering settlers cleanses the sin of settler-colonialism, it only makes sense that you might also blame the victim too.

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Seems more people need to come to this realization!!