Larry Gordon Editor-in-chief of the Five Towns Jewish Times Answers the Distorted Reporting of the Jerusalem Post & JTA News

 Last week, I was the news, and it was a fascinating experience.

For over 40 years I have been the one asking the questions, analyzing stories, profiling personalities, and so on. Then last week there was a freeze-frame moment when the front page of this newspaper was flashed on websites around the world with the dishonest angle being propagated that the 5TJT or I was in favor of or advocating violence at the U.S. Capitol protest. The idea was constantly repeated that since the person in the photo had her arms spread and was smiling, we must be endorsing the wanton, violent, and murderous attack.

I had to decide whether I was going to speak with reporters or just not return their calls or respond to their texts and e-mails. I decided fairly quickly that I did not want them saying that I was unavailable or refused to comment, because I certainly have a lot to say about the matter and how they were determined to spin it.

By the end of the week I gave interviews to two reporters—Shira Hanau of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Jeremy Ben Shalom of The Jerusalem Post. At the outset I asked one thing of them, and that was not to misquote me and not to distort what I say so that the story can be more sensational and therefore more attractive to editors and readers.

In the end they both failed. Apparently, they just could not resist being cagey and deceptive about what I said. And they were not the only ones to do that. Both wanted to know what I was thinking when I decided to use that photo and, even more strangely, they wanted to know at what time on that Wednesday afternoon was I thinking it.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Chareidim Continue to Disregard Rules ... 400-person Jewish wedding in Stamford Hill broken up by police

Site of mass Haredi wedding in London: A school whose principal died of COVID

Rabbi Avrohom Pinter died in April at the age of 71. When the British government ordered a lockdown that month to slow the spread of coronavirus, Pinter went door-to-door in northeast London to deliver the public health warning to the ultra-Orthodox Jews in his community. Within days, he had caught the disease and died.

Rabbi Pinter 

 On Thursday, London Police broke up a Jewish wedding party in north London. According to police sources, about 400 people were taking part in the event.

According to a report by BBC, the police found the windows at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School, in Stamford Hill covered when they arrived at the scene and the guests fled when the officers arrived.

"We had no knowledge that the wedding was taking place", a spokesman of the school said in response to the report, "We are absolutely horrified about last night's event and condemn it in the strongest possible terms."

Chief Rabbi of the UK, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, responded to the incident and wrote: "This is a most shameful desecration of all that we hold dear. At a time when we are all making such great sacrifices, it amounts to a brazen abrogation of the responsibility to protect life & such illegal behaviour is abhorred by the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community".

BBC reports that the organizers face a £10,000 fine for breaking lockdown rules.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

No, Twitter did not suspend Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader

On Friday, reports surfaced that Twitter had appeared to suspend an account belonging to Iran’s vehemently anti-Israel supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But @khamenei_site wasn’t the authoritarian leader’s real account.

The reason for the suspension was that the account had tweeted a photo calling for “revenge” against former President Donald Trump. Along with a photo showing Trump golfing beneath the shadow of a military airplane, the tweet read “Revenge is inevitable. Soleimani’s killer and the man who gave the orders must face vengeance.”

As president, Trump ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the senior Iranian general who commanded a force that had supported terrorist groups across the Middle East.

But Twitter said it suspended the account because it was fake, Reuters reported. Khamenei’s main account, with more than 880,000 followers, was still active.

Twitter told The Associated Press that it had suspended the fake account for violating the platform’s “abusive behavior policy” as well as its “manipulation and spam policy.”

Officials in Israel and the United States have drawn attention to Khamenei’s active account as debates over moderation on Twitter have escalated, and particularly as the platform has restricted and then suspended Trump’s account for inciting violence.

At a hearing last year in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, an Israeli activist asked why a Khamenei tweet calling for Israel’s elimination was allowed, given that a label had been appended to tweets by Trump. A Twitter official responded that “foreign policy saber-rattling on military and economic issues are generally not in violation of Twitter rules.”

Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s press secretary, said the statement spoke to Twitter’s “overwhelming, blinding bias against conservatives and against this president.”

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Washington Post Erases Story of Kamala Laughing at the Thought of a Prisoner Begging for a Drink of Water

The Washington Post scrubbed an unflattering anecdote of  Vice President Kamala Harris crassly laughing at the thought of a prisoner begging for a drink of water — then backtracked Friday after an eagle-eyed reporter took notice.

Harris made the comments in a July 2019 Washington Post profile about her relationship with her sister and trusted aide, Maya Harris, when the former California prosecutor was running for president.

But that story disappeared from the site — with its link redirecting to a newer version published on Jan. 11, sans anecdote.

In the opening of the 2019 piece, Harris described her grueling schedule on the campaign trail — and the respite she got from SoulCycle sessions and walks on the beach with her husband.

“It’s a treat that a prisoner gets when they ask for, ‘A morsel of food please,’” Harris told Washington Post reporter Ben Terris, who described the then-presidential candidate as “shoving her hands forward as if clutching a metal plate, her voice now trembling like an old British man locked in a Dickensian jail cell.”

“‘And water! I just want wahtahhh….'” Harris continued. “Your standards really go out the f—ing window.”

Terris noted, “Kamala burst into laughter.”

The link to the original story rerouted to the newer version published this month — a nearly identical version without the unflattering Harris prison anecdote.

The updated version instead has a more general opening about past politicians turning to family members as their closest advisors. 

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Harvey Zeiger aka Larry King dead at 87 From Covid

 

Larry King, America’s most iconic interviewer, who smooched Marlon Brando on-air and even conducted Mideast peace talks during his eponymous CNN show, has died, his official Twitter account announced Saturday morning.

The former CNN interviewer died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

King, 87, a multiple cancer survivor, had contracted coronavirus earlier this year, but it was not reported as a cause of death. In recent days he had appeared to be recovering, and was moved out of the ICU and breathing on his own.

“For 63 years and across the platforms of radio, television and digital media Larry’s many thousands of interview awards and global acclaim, stand as a testament to his unique and lasting talent as a broadcaster,” read a statement from Ora Media, his most recent employer.

“Larry always viewed his interview subjects as the true stars of his programs.”

Though he most recently worked for Ora TV, an on-demand digital television network he founded with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim in 2012, King was most famous for his television show “Larry King Live” which he hosted on CNN from 1985 to 2010.

“Larry King was a giant of broadcasting and a master of the TV celebrity/statesman-woman interview,” said former colleague Christiane Amanpour. “His name is synonymous with CNN and he was vital to the network’s ascent.” 

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Zera Shimshon Parshas Bo

 

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Rabbi Yudi Dukes 39 father of 6 dies after 10-month battle with COVID

Rabbi Yehuda “Yudi” Dukes, a Hasidic father of six who became sick with COVID-19 in late March and spent nearly 10 months in the hospital as he struggled with the effects of the disease, died Thursday. He was 39.

Dukes’ wife, Sarah, announced his death in a Facebook post Thursday morning hours after she exhorted her many followers on social media to pray for her husband.

Dukes became a symbol of the toll of the pandemic to many in the Chabad Hasidic community and around the world as Sarah documented his condition in Facebook and Instagram posts throughout his hospital stays. People around the world performed mitzvahs — Jewish rituals and good deeds that including saying prayers and learning Torah — in his honor with the hope of contributing to his recovery. A crowdfunding campaign has raised well over $500,000.

The rabbi and his wife, a music therapist, frequently sought spiritual meaning in his struggles with COVID.

“This has not been done to me,” Dukes told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from the medical intensive care unit at NYU’s Langone hospital last summer. “It’s been done for me.”

Before the pandemic began, Dukes had been healthy and served as the director of the Jewish Learning Network, or JNet, a worldwide Chabad program that pairs people to study Judaism together.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Judge Barbara Rothstein rules that Amazon won’t be forced to host Parler

So another Jew in power decides to choke free speech .... is it any wonder that the goyim hate our guts ..

Chuck Schumer is now Senate Majority Leader and the Biden Cabinet is chock full of Jewish self-haters .... 

Jews are 2% of the US population yet they are 6% of of the 535 lawmakers in both chambers of congress  ...very scary ... because by in large they do not vote for Jewish causes because they are afraid of what the goyim say, even though they were voted in by Jews  .. in contrast with  black legislators who are not afraid to vote for black causes ... ..so what's the point of having Jews in power when they are afraid to fight for Jewish values and cause goyim to hate us ... Americans even leftists will never forget that it was Jews like Schumer, Nadler, Schiff and Finestone (even though she is technically a shiksa) that tried unseating a sitting president..

 A federal judge on Thursday declined to force Amazon to bring controversial social network Parler back onto its cloud service. 

Parler had sued Amazon Web Services last week after the tech titan forced it to go dark — a decision that AWS blamed on the social network’s failure to police the threats of violence the platform ahead of this month’s pro-Trump siege on the US Capitol. In its suit, Parler accused Amazon of trying to protect Twitter from competition. 

The lawsuit suggested AWS pulled the plug on Parler to save Twitter from a growing competitor weeks after the two companies signed a deal that would see AWS support the delivery of “millions of daily tweets.”

But on Thursday US district Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said that Parler’s lawyers did not present a convincing argument. 

“Parler has failed to do more than raise the specter of preferential treatment of Twitter by AWS,” Rothstein said. “Importantly, Parler has submitted no evidence that AWS and Twitter acted together intentionally — or even at all — in restraint of trade.”

Parler is currently on life support, with CEO John Matze saying recently that the site could be offline for “longer than expected” as it seeks a new host.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Biden’s Executive Order Allows Men Dressed Like Girls To Compete in Women's Sports

 Mere hours after stressing the need for “unity,” President Biden sparked a new civil war with an executive order letting transgender women compete in women’s sports.

On social media, #BidenErasedWomen and #TERFs (an acronym for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”) trended following the action. That’s understandable: It’s one thing, after all, to ban discrimination; it’s another to tell schools and colleges that transwomen athletes — biologically born boys who now identify as female — must be allowed to compete with biological women and girls, despite their physical advantages.

The notion is patently ridiculous and may result in millions of girls losing out on prestigious sports victories (and maybe scholarships that go with them). It also risks greater injuries to women. A better solution, perhaps, might be to give trans athletes a league of their own.

Meanwhile, the US Education Department will now switch sides in two court battles, one in Connecticut and another in Idaho, over whether transgender athletes are treated by their biological sex or by how they identify.

Surely Title IX, the landmark federal law that guarantees equal opportunity for women and girls in education and sports, wasn’t drafted with the intent of allowing biological women to go up against female-identifying men.

“A new glass ceiling was just placed over girls,” Wall Street Journal contributor Abigail Shrier tweeted.

Clearly Biden wants to signal his left-wing bona fides early, but if such foolish moves foreshadow what’s to come, forget about “unity.”

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Amazon offers Biden vaccine assistance after months of silence with Trump... Amazon Wasn't Interested in Saving Lives With Trump!

Amazon is offering to help President Biden hasten distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, inviting questions about whether the offer was ever made to the Trump administration.

Amazon executive Dave Clark pitched the idea to Biden as soon as he took office in a Wednesday letter that also congratulated him on his inauguration. 

“We are prepared to leverage our operations, IT, & communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts. Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately,” Clark wrote.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said at a Thursday afternoon briefing that “we’ve had a lot of outreach, some privately, some publicly from a range of businesses and private sector entities. And we certainly welcome that. And we’ll be considering all of those offers.”

A journalist pressed Psaki about the timing of Amazon’s offer, inquiring if the tech giant waited until after Trump left office as “a political call… while lives are hanging in the  balance.

“I’m not aware of the timeline of when Amazon reached out. That sounds like a question for Amazon to me,” Psaki said.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ