Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalGrave Robbers, Nazi Collaborators and Official Apathy: How Ukraine Is Erasing the Holocaust
Thanks to the Ukrainian government, and the lack of interest from the global Jewish community, the physical remains of Holocaust victims are now being desecrated on a regular basis - and their memory quickly erased from history.
This July, I travelled with a 30 member group from our synagogue to the Sosinski Forest outside of Rivne, Ukraine.
Between November 5-6, 1941, all the Jews of Rivne, more than 17,000, were taken to the Sosinski Forest and killed by Nazi firing squads. We traveled to Sosinski to honor their memory.
As we arrived at the site we looked down and saw large gaping holes. We saw bones scattered all over the earth. My son looked up at me and said, "What is this?" He was holding a skull.
What was supposed to be a protected memorial site had been raided the day before by gravediggers, who, according to Ukrainian police, were looking for gold. We looked down at our feet and picked up skull fragments, a full set of teeth, a vertebral body, and other bones and buried them in a Jewish funeral.
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Kavanaugh's Answers About the Obergefell Same-Sex Marriage Case and Discrimination Are Disturbing
Judge Brett Kavanaugh is refusing to say if he agrees the historic 2015 Obergefell Supreme Court ruling finding same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage was correctly decided. He also is refusing to say if he thinks the days of discriminating against LGBT people are over.
Late Thursday during his Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing (video below) the Trump nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court faced one of his greatest opponents, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris. Harris, her state's former Attorney General for six years, and the District Attorney of San Francisco for seven years prior, is possibly one of the most precise questioners any modern-day Supreme Court nominee has ever faced.
"My question is, was the Obergefell case correctly decided, in your opinion," Sen. Harris asked.
Judge Kavanaugh, clearly prepared for the question – and for ways to not answer it – found a multitude of ways around it. As several watching the hearing noted, he instead "mansplained" to the accomplished California Senator.
---snip--
When all was said and done, Kavanaugh refused to answer.
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When all is said, and done, it will be THIS case which will likely be one of the first to go. The rights of the LGBT community hang in the balance, and frankly, IMO, many people don't seem to be all that concerned.
'Jewtropolis': antisemitic hack hits map used by Snapchat and Citi Bike
On Thursday morning, some users of the maps functionality on Snapchat were shocked to see New York labelled “Jewtropolis”. Users of the bike-rental scheme Citi Bike, the real estate website StreetEasy and the Weather Channel website saw the same thing.
No one at any of those companies appears to be responsible. Instead the blame lies with Mapbox, a third-party company that provides maps for online brands. Mapbox relies partly on user-provided data, and while there are supposed to be checks in place to prevent abuse of the system, it seems a prankster had managed to get through them and give New York a new antisemitic moniker, albeit one that was changed within an hour once moderators had spotted it.
In a statement, Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, said the defacement was “deeply offensive”. Mapbox called it “malicious hate speech” and a “disgusting attack” and said they were reviewing how it could have happened. Yet this is far from the first shot to be fired in the war of the maps apps.
You could be forgiven for thinking that online maps are one of the least controversial parts of the internet. Yes, social media may be rife with abuse, bullying and fake news, but apps like Google Maps and Waze appear to be objective, useful services.
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