Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalAnti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act Reintroduced in Senate
Republican senators have reintroduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which if it becomes law will give the federal government’s blessing to discrimination against LGBT people and others in the name of religious beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and 21 GOP colleagues today introduced a new version of the bill, The Hill reports. An earlier version was introduced in both the House and Senate in 2015 but never advanced out of committee.
Language in the bill states that its purpose is “to ensure that the Federal Government shall not take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially on the basis that such person speaks, or acts, in accordance with a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as a union of one man and one woman, or two individuals as recognized under Federal law, or that sexual relations outside marriage are improper.”
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Examples of discrimination that would be allowed under the act, according to HRC, include denial of federally mandated family leave to care for a same-sex spouse, or turning away people in same-sex marriages from homeless shelters or domestic violence shelters that receive federal funding.
The American Civil Liberties Union likewise denounced the measure. “Families targeted by this bill could include same-sex married couples and their children, a single mother and her child, or an unmarried couple who are living together,” the ACLU tweeted.
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(Jewish Group) How many Jews live in the U.S.? That depends on how you define Jewish.
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jewish people, and his regime murdered 6 million in pursuit of that goal.
Thousands of Jews fled to the United States and Israel during and after the Holocaust, if they could manage to make it to these relative safe havens. Now, more than 80 percent of the world’s Jewish population lives in those two countries, and the American Jewish population has grown substantially in number since the end of World War II.
The Jewish People Policy Institute estimated that the global Jewish population was nearing pre-Holocaust numbers a couple of years ago, in part because of “changing patterns of Jewish identification.” But that finding was challenged because of the study’s broad definition of “Jewish.”
Like most things in Judaism, there’s disagreement. Here’s how two major scholars define Jewishness:
•Steven Cohen, a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem, defines a Jew as “anybody who considers him or herself Jewish with some evidence of having Jewish familial ties or having affirmatively switched their identities by conversion or self-identification.” He says that being Jewish is not a religion but “a culture, an ancestry. Most practice Judaism, some don’t practice it at all and some practice other religions.”
•Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Sergio DellaPergola defines the more narrow “core Jewish population” as those who are Jewish only or Jewish by identity, even if they are not religiously Jewish, as long as they practice no other religions. But he also calculates estimates for a more expansive group: those with Jewish parents, those partially Jewish, those with Jewish backgrounds and those who qualify under the “Law of Return” — any person born to a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism without another Jewish identity.
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(Jewish Group) Womens March Renounces Farrakhans anti-Semitism, Supports Leader Who Embraced Him
THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!Organizers of the Women’s March renounced the anti-Semitic views of Louis Farrakhan, but they stood behind one of its co-presidents who attended a speech last month by the Nation of Islam leader and seemed unperturbed by his attacks on Jews.
Tamika Mallory, co-president of the Women’s March, sparked an outcry when she posted a photo of herself and Farrakhan on Instagram following his Saviours’ Day speech in Chicago on February 25.
In that speech, Farrakhan declared that “powerful Jews are my enemy” and that he had “pulled the cover off the eyes of the Satanic Jew.” Farrakhan, as he has done repeatedly in the past, also accused Jews of controlling the FBI and Hollywood, and plotting to synthesize marijuana in order to “feminize” black men.
Mallory subsequently deleted her post, but not before critics demanded to know why the leader of a broad-based civil rights movement would boast of her connections to Farrakhan.
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Let's see if people continue to hold their feet to the fire or are satiated by pathetic excuses.
The Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism in the US
The word “bizarre” does not begin to capture the everyday craziness of our politics in the Trump era. Here’s the opening paragraph of a column in National Review, titled “An Epidemic of Dishonesty on the Right,” by bona fide right-winger Kevin D. Williamson:
First it was the Holocaust, now Parkland—is there any act of depravity to which the less respectable right-wing media cannot imagine a connection for George Soros?
David Clarke, the sheriff of Fox News, insisted that the Florida students’ reaction to the shooting ‘has GEORGE SOROS’ FINGERPRINTS all over it,’ idiotic capitalization in the original and, one assumes, in his soul. The idiots at Gateway Pundit suggested that one of the student survivors was a fraud because—get this—he’d been interviewed on television before about an unrelated incident.
Had I written the above in The Nation, I would not change a word, except perhaps to add that, roughly simultaneously to all of the above, the head of the Missouri Republican Party was blaming Soros for the indictment of the state’s governor, Eric Greitens, who is accused of taking surreptitious nude photos of his mistress for the purpose of blackmail.
The desire to attach Soros’s name to virtually everything that Trumpists seek to denounce of late is inextricably tied to the fact that the liberal Jewish billionaire/philanthropist has been turned into a bogeyman for anti-Semites the world over. Soros is today’s stand-in for the time-honored anti-Jewish slanders sensationalized in Europe and elsewhere in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That’s why Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary practically turned Soros—whom he blames for “destroy[ing] the lives of millions of Europeans”—into his opposition party in that nation’s recent elections. It’s why, in Macedonia, a group called Stop Operation Soros, or SOS, emerged to try to defend that nation’s corrupt right-wing party. It’s why Poland’s ruling party leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, said he believes that Soros views cosmopolitan societies as “extremely easy to manipulate.” Right-wing idiots have been setting fire to effigies and portraits representing Soros in rallies from Warsaw to Tbilisi.
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The inescapable anti-Semitism of Western nationalists
Readers of Today's WorldView are well aware of how the far right has gone mainstream over the past year. They were brought there by a confluence of events: President Trump's rise to the White House on an ultranationalist platform, the electoral gains made by once-fringe parties in Western Europe and the deepening illiberalism of parties in power farther east. As a result, we've seen a rise in Islamophobia as well as widespread demonization of immigrants in various countries.
But this resurgent nativism also encompasses an old and dark tradition: a virulent hatred of Jews.
You could see it in last year's infamous white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, where hundreds — inspired in part by Trump's politics — chanted “Jews will not replace us.” (The president decries anti-Semitism, but had a notoriously tough time denouncing the neo-Nazi marchers.) You could see it in the sly game played by Poland's ruling party, which has moved to criminalize discussion of Poland's role in the Holocaust while looking the other way during a nationalist demonstration in November where supporters chanted “Pure Poland, Jew-Free Poland.” And you could even see it in the hideous slaughter of 17 high school students in Florida this month — the shooter's magazines were reportedly etched with swastikas.
Anti-Semitic incidents were up in 2017. If we expect law enforcement officials and community members to take these incidents seriously, we must take them seriously - report anti-Semitic incidents to the police and to ADL: https://t.co/pZrpwaRYei pic.twitter.com/3ufYXwnxFX
— ADL (@ADL_National) February 27, 2018
A new study by the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based organization that tracks anti-Semitism and other bigotry, found an alarming rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2017. “The ADL’s 2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents identified 1,986 examples of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assault in 2017, the largest single-year increase and the second-highest number since it started tracking the data in the 1970s,” my colleague Tara Bahrampour reported. “Vandalism was up by 86 percent, and incidents targeting Jewish schools, community centers, museums and synagogues had surged by 101 percent since 2016, the report found. The number of anti-Semitic incidents in K-12 schools has roughly doubled each year for the past two years, the report said.”
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Antisemitism: How the Origins of Worlds Oldest Hatred Still Holds Ground
Antisemitic incidents are on the rise across the globe. To understand this modern hatred we need to look into the past and understand its origins.
Antisemitism is on the march. From the far-right demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, with their “Blood and Soil” chants and their “Jews will not replace us” placards to attacks on synagogues in Sweden, arson attacks on kosher restaurants in France and a spike in hate crimes against Jews in the UK. Antisemitism seems to have been given a new lease of life.
The seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East have made the problem worse as they spawn divisive domestic politics in the West. But can the advance of antisemitism be attributed to the rise of right-wing populism or the influence of Islamic fundamentalism? One thing is clear. Antisemitism is here and it’s getting worse.
Antisemitism rears its ugly head in every aspect of public life, whether internal debates within political parties or accusations of conspiratorial networks or plots in politics and business. Or even in the accusations that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexually predatory behaviour was somehow linked to his Jewish origins.
But by focusing narrowly on the contemporary context of modern antisemitism, we miss a central, if deeply depressing, reality. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic magazine, puts it correctly when he says that what we are seeing is an ancient and deeply embedded hostility towards Jews that is reemerging as the barbarous events of World War II recede from our collective memory.
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In NRA's Response to School Massacre: Dog-whistle anti-Semitism, a Star-spangled Protocols of Zion
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Longtime National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre Thursday addressed criticism of his organization following the Florida school massacre, and his combative defense included expressions of dog-whistle anti-Semitism reminiscent of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," with descriptions of a powerful plot to destroy America's freedom by "European-style Socialists" who he said had taken over the Democratic Party.
LaPierre vowed that the NRA intends to go far beyond its role as a gun lobby, to warn Americans that all of their individual freedoms are being destroyed by a condescending intellectual elite. "I promise you this - the NRA will not only speak out, the NRA will speak out louder and we will speak out stronger than ever before," with its own television station and expanded media operations to resist "the Socialist corruption of our government."
Again and again in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, LaPierre identified the enemies of the NRA, and of America, as Jews - from Karl Marx to Bernie Sanders, from Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor George Soros to former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. LaPierre singled out Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York as one of the Democrats who are "liars to the core."
"History proves it. Every time, in every nation in which this political disease rises to power, its citizens are repressed, their freedoms are destroyed, and their firearms are banned and confiscated. It is all backed in this country by the social engineering, and the billions, of people like [philanthropists of Jewish lineage] George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, and more."
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No surprises. Not surprising this blame is occurring. Not surprising it is wholly ignored in most major media outlets. Not surprising it is all but ignored by most everyone!
In NRA's Response to School Massacre: Dog-whistle anti-Semitism, a Star-spangled Protocols of Zion
Longtime National Rifle Association chief executive Wayne LaPierre Thursday addressed criticism of his organization following the Florida school massacre, and his combative defense included expressions of dog-whistle anti-Semitism reminiscent of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," with descriptions of a powerful plot to destroy America's freedom by "European-style Socialists" who he said had taken over the Democratic Party.
LaPierre vowed that the NRA intends to go far beyond its role as a gun lobby, to warn Americans that all of their individual freedoms are being destroyed by a condescending intellectual elite. "I promise you this - the NRA will not only speak out, the NRA will speak out louder and we will speak out stronger than ever before," with its own television station and expanded media operations to resist "the Socialist corruption of our government."
Again and again in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, LaPierre identified the enemies of the NRA, and of America, as Jews - from Karl Marx to Bernie Sanders, from Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor George Soros to former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. LaPierre singled out Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York as one of the Democrats who are "liars to the core."
"History proves it. Every time, in every nation in which this political disease rises to power, its citizens are repressed, their freedoms are destroyed, and their firearms are banned and confiscated. It is all backed in this country by the social engineering, and the billions, of people like [philanthropists of Jewish lineage] George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, and more."
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(Jewish Group) Post-communist Jews responsible for anti-Semitism in Poland, lawmaker says
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Amid a polarizing debate in Poland and beyond about the country’s complicity in the Holocaust, a lawmaker for the ruling Law and Justice party said post-communist Jews, not Poles, should apologize for anti-Semitism.
Krystyna Pawłowicz in an op-ed published Monday on the news website Wpolityce was commenting on criticism by Jewish groups and the State of Israel on a law passed last week by the parliament that criminalizes accusing Poland of crimes committed by the Nazis during their occupation of the country during World War II. The Nazis killed 4 million Jews in Poland, including 3 million with Polish nationality. They also killed 3 million non-Jewish Poles, who the Nazis considered inferior. In parallel, individual Poles killed thousands of Jews. Thousands of Poles also helped rescue Jews and Jewish families.
“The post-communists and the opposition again today want us, Poles in free Poland, to apologize once more, this time for their anti-Semitism carried out as part of internal struggles between the Soviet governors,” she wrote.
Across the former Soviet Union and its satellite countries, there is persistent anti-Semitic sentiment centered on the outsize role of Jews in the communist revolution and regimes that followed. Some of those regimes in Russia, Poland and other areas adopted anti-Semitic policies.
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How fucking typical! Of course, we see the same type of anti-Semitism when we see assholes blaming anti-Semitism on Israel or making excuses for anti-Semitic acts because of Israel. Basically, it is the same for both sides: blame the victim.
(Jewish Group) Belgian Police Detain Refugee for anti-Semitic Hate Crimes
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)A 24-year-old refugee, believed to be Muslim, was briefly detained by Belgian police for anti-Semitic hate crimes, including the destruction of at least 20 mezuzahs in Antwerp, local Jews said.
In recent weeks, the same man was filmed in Antwerp destroying at least 20 mezuzahs, religious objects containing a parchment with biblical text inked on it that Jews affix to their door frames, and vandalizing the entrance doors of several Jewish institutions, Joods Actueel, the Jewish monthly reported Sunday. He was detained for 12 hours Friday based on footage from security cameras of him destroying the mezuzahs.
He had also placed a Koran near a synagogue, and was filmed knocking off the hat of an Orthodox Jew on the street. He shouted at Jewish passersby: “This is our land, Palestine!” and: “We will show you!”
The man was spotted hanging around an area of the city that is heavily populated by Orthodox Jews after his release Saturday, Joods Actueel reported based on information from Shmira, the Jewish community’s security service.
Last week, Belgian police said that the near ramming of an Orthodox Jew and his son in Antwerp was not an anti-Semitic incident, although the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA, said it was.
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