From Ian:
Activists manipulate third-graders into hating Israel
The video turned over to us by the district (for which I had to pay by court order) did a sloppy job redacting faces and names, so I hired a video editor to do a better job. The video of student discussions below is the result of our more thorough blurring of faces and removal of names, even though that was the district’s responsibility.
We went to these efforts, at substantial expense, because we view the children subjected to the Tamimi event as victims of manipulation by the adults involved.
The Court order also said that the school district “may” muffle student voices if the voices revealed identity, but the School District did not do so.
The first video turned over by the district was a short video of the Janna Jihad video being played to the class. Bassem Tamimi is sitting to the left of the screen. He starts by stating:
“[Janna Jihad in the video is] Eight years old
This is the message for the world and from the Palestinian children”
The second, and main video, is a class discussion after the formal presentation was over. While we don’t have video of the full presentation, you can see the themes mentioned in documents repeated by the students, particularly the “wall” (the security barrier), how families suffer, how Israel is wrong and Palestinians are right, and how only Palestinian children suffer.
There was no discussion, from anything we have seen, about the suffering of Israeli children at the hands of Palestinian terrorists, such as Bassem Tamimi’s cousin Ahlem Tamimi. Ahlem masterminded the Sbarro Pizza suicide bombing, is a hero among the Tamimi clan in Nabi Saleh, and Bassem Tamimi has refused to denounce her.
While I think the whole discussion was inappropriate for third graders, if the school was going to hold an educational event, it would have been good to talk not only about Janna Jihad, but also about Malki Roth who was killed in the Sbarro Pizza massacre by Bassem Tamimi’s cousin. It also could have been explained that the “wall” was built only after dozens of other children (and several hundred other civilians) were killed by Palestinian suicide bombers, and that the wall protects children. As to Gaza, the brutality of Hamas could have been mentioned, and the Israeli attacks put in the context of relentless Hamas rocket fire even after Israel accepted an Egyptian ceasefire proposal.
There is no evidence in what has been released of a balanced presentation. That there was no attempt at balance or explanation shows that this was a political propaganda event. The emotions of young children were manipulated by adults in positions of power and authority, and who occupied positions of trust.
In the video, you can see how heavily teacher Burnett pushed the students to view Israel negatively and to accept what the students had just been shown.
Activists manipulate third-graders into hating Israel
Richard Landes: “Celebrating” Orientalism
Conclusion
Through the backdoor of an unreciprocated concern for the “other,” educated Westerners have allowed a hostile, bullying, honor-shame discourse to take over much of their public space: “Islamophobia,” not Islamism, is the problem;[74] Palestinians continue to save face and regain public honor by besmirching Israel, which, by its very existence and success, shames them; while so many social justice warriors, consumed with post-colonial guilt and fearful of the “Islamophobic” label, join forces with the “honor-brigade” in driving Israel beyond the pale.[75]
In the larger picture of civilizational development, this is lamentable. It took a millennium of constant and painful efforts for Western culture to learn how to sublimate man’s libido dominandi to the point of creating a society tolerant of diversity, one that resolved disputes with a discourse of fairness rather than violence, and one where positive-sum encounters are a desired norm. To insist, as many liberals do, that this exceptional achievement be considered the default mode for mankind regardless of how far the “other” is from this cherished goal, and to exempt enemies of democracy from the civic responsibility of self-criticism even while redoubling its burden on oneself, is to undermine the freedoms Western civilization has built up over centuries.[76]
Unless and until academics and information professionals reclaim and till fields like honor-shame dynamics and Islamist triumphalism, Westerners will not be able to understand Arab and Islamic societies and will continue to indict the critic, not the legitimate target of criticism, at great peril to their democratic values and national interests. The inability to engage in self-criticism is the greatest weakness of honor-shame cultures, and the ability to do so is the greatest strength of those committed to integrity. Yet, now, astonishingly, the inability is strength, and our over-eagerness to compensate, our weakness.
Three thousand interviews later, a Canadian-Israeli’s views on the conflict
Corey Gil-Shuster, 47, is a Canadian-born Israeli who has published over 500 videos on this YouTube channel in the last four years. As the creator of “The Ask Project,” every week he travels in Israel and the West Bank interviewing people on both sides of the conflict.
“It’s seeking the truth. It started in that way. It was really about showing, first of all, what people think. And then, for me it’s very important to know what is reality and what isn’t,” said Gil-Shuster.
Gil-Shuster randomly stops people in the street or elsewhere and tries to talk with them. If they consent to being filmed with his small camera, he asks them questions that he receives from his YouTube followers from all over the world.
The funding for the project mainly comes out of Gil-Shuster’s own pocket, and he has no intention of stopping. Since 2012 he has interviewed more than 3,000 Israelis and Palestinians. His aim, when he can afford to, is to create a documentary about the project.
“With this project, people have the opportunity to hear from the side they disagree with, and to humanize it,” said Gil-Shuster.
Trump campaign manager: He will move US embassy to Jerusalem
President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, confirmed that Trump intends to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Speaking with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on his Monday morning show, Conway said that moving the embassy to Jerusalem “is very big priority for this president-elect, Donald Trump.”
“He made it very clear during the campaign, Hugh, and as president-elect I’ve heard him repeat it several times privately, if not publicly.” she continued.
Congress passed a law in 1995 mandating that the US embassy be moved to Israel. The law included a waiver allowing the the President to postpone the move. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have all exercised this waiver throughout their presidencies, despite promises to move the embassy.
Conway implied that it was a mistake for past presidents not to move the embassy. “It is something that our friend in Israel, a great friend in the Middle East, would appreciate and something that a lot of Jewish-Americans have expressed their preference for,” she said. “It is a great move. It is an easy move to do based on how much he talked about that in the debates and in the sound bites.”
The disagreements over religious issues between Jewish Americans and Jewish Israelis have now taken on an additional factor that has the potential for crisis. That factor is U.S. President-elect Donald Trump — or, in the name of precision, Trump and Israel. As we saw once again in the recent U.S. election, the majority of Jewish Americans stuck with tradition and voted for the Democratic candidate.
The topic of Israel apparently did not play an important part, if any at all, in the voting process. Not only was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton perceived to be as much a fan of Israel as her Republican rival, but also, issues related to Israel barely came up during the election campaign, which focused mainly on internal American issues and on the personas of the candidates. This, despite the fact that the majority of American media outlets, which either openly or covertly supported the Democratic candidate, tried to hurl all kinds of false accusations at Trump — including charges of anti-Semitism. However, the anti-Semitism charges did not hold water, not only because Trump’s daughter is married to Jew and has Jewish children, but also, more importantly, because his past bears no signs of tendencies or comments made against Jews.
Members of the radical Right, including anti-Semites and neo-Nazis, also supported Trump’s candidacy, though not at his urging. And anti-Semitic leftists, pro-Palestinian advocates and BDS propagandists — including Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison, who is now running for Democratic National Committee chair — supported Clinton, also not at her urging. Both presidential candidates can be blamed, at most, for failing to speak out immediately and sharply against these undesirable “supporters.” The poisonous influence injected into the vein of public consciousness in this context will seemingly be neutralized very slowly; and at this point, it continues to add to the doubts among the Jewish community regarding the incoming administration.
‘The Genius of Judaism’: An Interview with Bernard-Henri Lévy
Bernard-Henri Lévy, France’s leading public intellectual, returns to the United States in January to promote his new book, The Genius of Judaism, perhaps the fullest expression yet of his commitment to the Jewish faith, Jewish culture, and the continued flourishing of the State of Israel. Newly-returned from the Iraqi city of Mosul, where he accompanied Kurdish peshmerga fighters combating ISIS, Lévy spoke by phone with Ben Cohen, senior editor of The Tower.
In your new book, The Genius of Judaism, you demonstrate the depth of your Jewish identity. How has that identity guided you in your writing and advocacy on behalf of those nations and communities, particularly in the Middle East, suffering from war, religious persecution and ethnic cleansing?
My relationship to Judaism is the most important thread of my life as a committed intellectual. When I report about the most forgotten wars, as I did a few years ago in Africa and elsewhere, when I commit myself, as I do these very days with the battle for Mosul, when I commit myself, as I did 25 years ago, with the people of Sarajevo besieged by the Serbs – when I do all of that, I am faithful to this obligation, this duty, of going to the other and embracing his otherness, which is at the heart of the Jewish identity as I conceive it in my book.
How do you see Israel’s regional position today, given the tumult around it?
In the turmoil of our time, in the earthquakes which are shaking the whole area, Israel appears more than ever as a pole of stability and of democracy. I always feel, and I say this in my book, it’s a model of democracy not only for the Middle East but for the world!
Look at how we French deal with terrorism. I saw how you Americans dealt after September 11, 2001, with a state of emergency. And I compare our two attitudes – American and French – with the attitude of Israel, which is in a state of emergency not just for two years, or fifteen years, but since the very day of its birth, 69 years ago. Israel, frankly, has an exemplary attitude, which is to deal with emergencies without giving up on democratic values.
Report: Pro-BDS group lives large on European donors’ funds
A Palestinian human rights group is misusing donor funds to finance the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, a new report found Sunday.
The report, by NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that promotes greater transparency among foreign-funded Israeli nongovernmental organizations, claims that the Ramallah-based Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat has greatly inflated its functionaries’ salaries.
The secretariat also uses donor funds to finance other BDS groups and activities, the report said.
The secretariat was set up by European governments to funnel funds to Palestinian and Israeli political groups classified as human rights organizations.
As such, the secretariat provides core funding for 24 nongovernmental organizations and auxiliary funding to other groups, 13 of which are declared BDS groups, which have received over $5.8 million in foreign funding over the past four years.
NGO Monitor found that some of the groups use anti-Semitic rhetoric, while others are headed by officials with known ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Gaza Strip-based terrorist group.
World’s first BDS account closure, says German bank
The Bank für Sozialwirtschaft (Bank for Social Economy) announced on Monday that it has shut down the account of a German group because it advocates a boycott against the Jewish state, fails to meet the bank’s ethical standards, and stokes antisemitism.
The Cologne-based bank said the decisive reason for the closure is the anti-Israel group “Jewish Voice supports the campaign Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS). This has the goal of destabilizing the State of Israel and is not compatible with the principles of the Bank for Social Economy.”
The Bank for Social Economy is the first global financial institution to explicitly state it closed an account because of BDS and connect BDS’s activities to modern antisemitism and a breach of ethics.
“The positions of the BDS campaign, in content and style, go way beyond the framework of ordinary democratic discourse,” the bank said.
The bank said it notified the hard-core anti-Zionist group “Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East” on December 1 that its account was terminated. Justifying the account closure, the bank cited one of Germany’s leading academic experts on contemporary antisemitism, Dr. Samuel Salzborn, who said BDS is not interested in criticism, rather “its intention is antisemitic.”
Ohio lawmakers latest to pass anti-BDS bill in ‘1-2 punch’
The Ohio Senate has approved a bill targeting the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The bill passed Thursday by a vote of 26 to 5, and now awaits Gov. John Kasich’s signature to become law, the Cleveland Jewish News reported Sunday.
The state’s House of Representatives passed the measure in November by a vote of 74 to 18.
If the bill becomes law, Ohio will join 13 other states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, New York, South Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee — that have similar legislation in place.
House Bill 476 bars the state from contracting companies that engage in or promote the boycott of Israel, and requires companies to state explicitly in contracts signed with the state that they are not involved in any BDS activity.
Republican Representative Kirk Schuring was the bill’s primary sponsor, and had 13 co-sponsors, including Republican Speaker of the House Cliff Rosenberger.
Howie Beigelman, executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, welcomed the results.
Statement by several score of European legal eagles, including to my certain knowledge a chap who wore his Jewish identity lightly, eschewed Jewish communal life, but suddenly threw himself vigorously into the work of a body formed of fellow as-a-Jews whose sole purpose is denigrating Israel.
Not that he is signing “as a Jew” on this occasion, for the signatories represent a cross-section of anti-Israel legal opinion in today’s Eurabia.
“Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a global, peaceful movement led by Palestinian civil society that seeks to put pressure on Israel to honour its obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law as demanded by numerous UN resolutions, in particular to end the occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories, stop systemic discrimination against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel itself, and permit the return of Palestinian refugees.
Modeled on the Anti-Apartheid Movement that mobilized civil society against apartheid in South Africa, the BDS movement has become a powerful and effective global movement in the advocacy of measures aimed at pressurizing Israel to comply with international law, and at persuading other states and business enterprises to withhold all support for Israel’s violations of international law.
The mobilization of civil society in the interest of human rights, such as the campaign against apartheid in South Africa and the Civil Rights movement in the United States, has not been obstructed by foreign governments. The effectiveness of BDS, however, has prompted not only Israel but also some other states to adopt measures to suppress this movement.
France, the United Kingdom, Canada and certain state legislatures in the United States, have adopted laws and taken executive action to suppress, outlaw and in some instances, criminalize the advocacy of BDS. Such measures aim to punish individuals, companies and private and public institutions that adopt ethically and legally responsible business, investment and procurement decisions.
DENK: A new Muslim anti-Israel Party in the Netherlands
The massive non-selective immigration of Muslims into Western Europe is the worst that happened to Jewish communities in Western Europe since the Holocaust. It has also led to the most evil attacks on Israel’s standing in Western Europe. A new development in the Netherlands adds further to the latter.
The new national party DENK (Think) party aims mainly at Muslim voters. Its initiators are two Turkish-born parliamentarians Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk. They were expelled from the Labor party (PvdA) faction at the end of 2014 because they opposed the integration policy for
During Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the Netherlands on 7 September 2016, he refused to shake his hand.
immigrants of Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher (PvdA).[1] He had criticized the role of some Dutch Turkish organizations concerning integration of immigrants.[2] Kuzu got some international attention when, during Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to the Netherlands on 7 September 2016, he refused to shake his hand.
DENK favors the recognition of the non-existing Palestinian state. This policy has the support of all Dutch parties on the political left. These include the extreme left SP socialist party, the Green Left party, the party for the Animals, the Labor party and the D66 left-liberals. A recent parliamentary motion to recognize Palestine was defeated by 76 against 71 votes.[3]
The supporters of the motion know well that there exist two different Palestinian entities in respectively the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza. They are humanitarian racists who wish to ignore the fact that the largest Palestinian party Hamas, which controls Gaza, aims in its covenant for the genocide of all Jews.[4] The only other significant Palestinian party Fatah, which controls the ‘West Bank’, glorifies violence against Israeli citizens.
Muslim-founded Dutch political party posts that Hitler was Jewish
A Dutch anti-discrimination group complained to police about a political party whose Muslim founders said Adolf Hitler was Jewish and that homosexuality is a contagious illness.
The Bureau Against Discrimination on Wednesday filed the hate speech complaint against the Free Democracy Party, which was established last week ahead of general parliamentary elections scheduled for March, the De Orkaan news site reported.
The party’s official Facebook page was blocked last month in what the party claims was a response to a post about Jews. The post said “Jews are worse than the devil” and accused Jews of helping Hitler reach power in Germany and participating in the murder of other Jews, according to De Orkaan. “Hitler was an Austrian Jew who during World War II killed many Jews, including by gassing them,” the post read.
The post also claimed Jews use the far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders “as a pawn to stir trouble in Holland” and falsely asserted that Wilders is Hitler’s grandson. Jews “run the United States but the stupid Europeans believe they were freed by the Americans” during the war, the text also reads.
IsraellyCool: Eran Cohen, Anti-Israel UJS President Contender, Gets Ass Handed Back To Him On Platter
Eran Cohen, the BDS-hole who was running for Union Of Jewish Students President in the UK, has not won the election.
Not even close.
Millennial voters across Britain elected Josh Holt as head of the national Jewish student union on Sunday, defeating four other candidates including Israeli-born pro-BDS activist Eran Cohen.
A statement by the UJS said Holt won 682 of 1049 votes cast.
“Holt has decisively won the election to become the next UJS president,” a statement issued by the organization said.
What this Ha’aretz report fails to mention (and you can speculate as to why) is that Cohen received only 89 votes! Or 8.5% of the vote (as opposed to Josh Holt’s 65%). Which also means the third candidate received 278 or 26.5%.
In other words, last place. By. A. Mile.
Tracking the Jewish Reaction to Antisemitism on Campus
Over the years — and more particularly since 2006 — various surveys and reports have told us that Jewish university students confronted with antisemitism on campus feel “uncomfortable,” “vulnerable,” alarmed,” frightened,” etc. These surveys also tell us the number of antisemitic incidents that students experience or witness each year.
Curiously enough, none of the surveys have probed the following three questions, which I consider fundamentally important for the future of the American Jewish community (both on campus and more generally):
1. How did the Jewish students handle and respond to each of the incidents?
2. Why did the students handle the incident the way they did; did any other Jewish or non-Jewish student in the vicinity come to their aid — and if so, what did they do; and if no one came to their aid, what was the Jewish students’ reaction to that?
3. When Good Samaritans did come to a Jewish student’s aid — do we know why they did so? Or do we know why they chose to walk away?
The data generated by the survey would tell us a great deal about the depth of the internal divisions and conflicts currently experienced by Jewish students on college campuses. They would also tell us the character of the next generation of Jewish Americans and Jewish American leaders — and tell us how we should focus our campus efforts in the future.
UPDATE: New York Times Public Editor Responds to Breaking the Silence Complaint
On December 4, we exposed how the New York Times had failed to disclose the links between the author of a major feature article on the Palestinian refugee camp of Shuafat and the radical Breaking the Silence organization.
We sent a complaint to the New York Times’s public editor Liz Spayd and asked our readers to add their voices. The public editor has responded:
The public editor’s take: I found Kushner’s magazine story to be an exceptional piece of reporting and writing, one that didn’t seem to be carrying anyone’s political agenda. That said, the wiser choice would have been to make clear the role of Breaking the Silence in the project. Disclosure ahead of time is better than questions afterward.
Thank you to all of you who emailed the New York Times and to Howard Brown, a subscriber to HonestReporting who is our Watchdog of the Week for getting his comments into the public editor’s column.
While the public editor’s comments are welcome, we would still question why a disclosure has not been added to the original article. While the public editor’s statement links to the article, the article itself does not include the addition of a link to the public editor’s column.
Nevertheless, the New York Times has been forced to acknowledge our complaint, which is a significant achievement.
Honest Reporting: Writer Ignores Why Palestinian Children Are in Israeli Jails
Israel passed a “Youth Bill” in August 2016 which will allow the authorities to imprison a minor convicted of serious crimes such as murder, attempted murder or manslaughter even if he or she is under the age of 14.
“The seriousness that we attach to terror and acts of terror that cause bodily injury and property damage, and the fact that these acts of terror are being carried out by minors, demands a more aggressive approach including toward minors who are convicted of offenses, particularly serious offenses,” the explanatory introduction to the bill reads.
MK Anat Berko, who proposed the legislation said, “This law was born of necessity. We have been experiencing a wave of terror for quite some time. A society is allowed to protect itself. To those who are murdered with a knife in the heart it does not matter if the child is 12 or 15. We’ve witnessed numerous cases where 11-year-old children were suicide bombers. Perhaps this law will also do something to protect these children from being used to slaughter people.”
Nobody wishes to see children imprisoned. Israel continues to try to improve both the legal and physical conditions for Palestinian minors who carry out acts of terror and violence. Kristen Zornada, however, appears to be less concerned with the rights of the child and more concerned with appropriating the issue in order to promote her anti-Israel agenda.
Britain adopts broader anti-Semitism definition to fight hate crimes against Jews
Britain will be among the first countries worldwide to adopt an international definition of anti-Semitism in efforts to fight hate crimes and incitement targeting Jews which have been on the rise this past year.
On Monday, in pre-released excerpts of a speech she is set to give, British Prime Minister Theresa May said “it means there will be one definition of anti-Semitism – in essence, language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews – and anyone guilty of that will be called out on it,” according to Reuters.
“It is unacceptable that there is anti-Semitism in this country. It is even worse that incidents are reportedly on the rise. As a government we are making a real difference and adopting this measure is a groundbreaking step,” her speech reads. It was not yet clear when she would give the address.
The definition adopted by Britain was formulated earlier this year by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and is designed to make it harder to evade repercussions for discriminatory or prejudiced behavior because of a lack of clarity or differing opinions on what constitutes anti-Semitism.
British gov’t: Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination is antisemitic.
Since this blog’s founding in 2009, we’ve always had a dual mission:
1. To promote fair and accurate coverage of Israel in the British media.
2. To expose and combat tropes and narratives about Israel in the British media which cross the line from legitimate criticism to antisemitism – what’s known as the ‘New Antisemitism’.
To this latter end, we were always quite clear that when we use the word “antisemitism”, our guide would be the EUMC (European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia) Working Definition (WD). Whilst you can read the entire WD here, here’s how the WD defines antisemitism with respect to Israel:
- Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
- Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
- Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
- Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
We’ve been extremely careful about using the word antisemitism with regard to coverage of Israel, and generally only evoked the term if articles or op-eds employed rhetoric or endorsed ideas consistent with the above bullet points. (Just yesterday, in fact, we called out The Independent – per the first bullet point – for legitimising the charge that Zionism is a racist movement.)
UK bans neo-Nazi group under anti-terror laws
A British neo-Nazi group will become the first of its kind to be banned under anti-terror laws, with Interior Minister Amber Rudd branding it Monday as “racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic.”
Britain’s interior ministry said the far-right extremist group, National Action, was being banned under the Terrorism Act as it had been assessed to be “concerned in terrorism.”
The move means that supporting or being a member of the organization will be a criminal offence, carrying a potential 10-year prison sentence, the Home Office said in a statement.
“National Action is a racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic organization which stirs up hatred, glorifies violence and promotes a vile ideology, and I will not stand for it,” said Rudd, announcing the ban.
“It has absolutely no place in a Britain that works for everyone.”
Siemens finances publication of Jewish slave laborer’s memoirEurope
One of Germany’s largest corporations – Siemens – has financed the German publication of the memoir of a former Jewish slave laborer who worked in a Siemens factory outside Auschwitz.
Marcel Tuchman, 95, a renowned physician in New York, was in Berlin this week to mark the release of his translated autobiography, “Remember: My Stories of Survival and Beyond.” The original was published by Yad Vashem in 2010; the German edition is a Metropol publication.
Speaking to a group of German, Polish and Austrian students at the Documentation Center of National Socialist Forced Labor in Berlin, Tuchman said he would not have survived had he not believed that “all the world would know about what was happening. That gave us strength.”
Tuchman was born in Poland in 1921. He was 21 when he and his father were selected at Auschwitz – along with some 100 others – to construct and then work in the Siemens Bobrek factory outside the main camp.
The SS evacuated the workers in a death march from Auschwitz in January 1945. They were transferred from Buchenwald to Berlin. A few months later, the war was over. Both Marcel and his father survived.
Israel launches initiative to document story of Mizrachi Jews
The State announced Sunday that it had approved the initiative of Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel (Likud) to begin a national project to document the story of the Jews from Arab countries and Iran. The project will receive a budget of 10 million shekels ($2.6 million) for the years 2017-2018.
The project is part of a larger effort to deepen the knowledge and awareness of the story and legacy of Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews among Israelis and to bring their story into the public consciousness.
The project will consist of a collection of personal testimonies, both written and filmed, of Jews from Arab countries and Iran speaking about their personal lives and the communities they lived in. The expulsion of those Jewish communities from many Muslim countries in the middle of the twentieth century will also be covered. The project will also encourage the writing of biographies of Jews who immigrated to Israel from Muslim countries.
MK Gila Gamliel welcomed the decision to fund the project. “This is a historic moment. [It marks] the beginning of the writing of the chapter of the Mizrachi Jews in the story of the Jewish people. From now on, the Jewish story will be complete and Israeli citizens, young and old, will be able to listen to, learn about, and appreciate the glorious history of the Jewish people, and the eastern side the same as on the western side.”
Missing film footage found in a flea market in Paris depicting a ‘city without Jews’ will be restored and re-shown after thousands was raised in a crowdfunding project.
Based on the dystopian novel by Jewish publicist Hugo Bettauer, the film reels for Die Stadt ohne Juden ‘The City Without Jews’, were found by a French collector in October last year.
It was one of the most sought after missing reels in Austrian film history.
The Guardian reports the silent film is set after the First World War, in a German-speaking city where inflation is soaring and the inhabitants are turning on each other.
The leaders are keen to find a scapegoat and announce that the people demand the expulsion of all Jews.
Though it sounds as if it could have been from a history book about the Third Reich, the film premiered in Vienna in 1924.
After the most successful crowd-funding bid in Austria’s history, the film will be digitally restored and have a new score, before being shown in Vienna’s concert hall in Autumn 2017.
On the crowdfunding website, We Make It, the Austrian Film Archive write: ‘Disturbingly prophetic, it shows the cultural and economic impoverishment of a city following the expulsion of its Jewish population.
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