THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Erica Mena, an American television personality best known for her appearances on Love & Hip Hop: New York, a fact that makes me sad because I never watched it so I am deprived of the privilege of boycotting it. Why? Because the half Puerto Rican, half Dominican former “video vixen” hates Jews. With a passion. And she shares it with Twitter, the social network that banned President Donald Trump.
I opted not to share with you the live Tweets because Erica Mena’s profile image is not suitable for a family newspaper. My apologies to John-Paul Pagano who shared them, sorry I can’t give you the traffic.
Here goes, tweet no. 1 from this influencer, May 16, 2021, at 11:56 PM:
“I’m so disgusted with Israel. These Jewish people are really killing children and stealing from these innocent people. A real special place in hell for them all. #FreePalestine.”
And tweet no. 2, next day, May 17, 2021, at 2:46 PM:
“I stand with (Palestinian flag emoji)! I don’t care what anyone has to say. If you think it’s okay to kill young innocent children and remove people from their homes, you can go to hell along with the devils of Israel that are taking part in a genocide right now as we speak.”
As in the case of so many celebrities, you have to wonder what came first, the anti-Semitism or the event that drove them to spill it out.
Stay cool and avoid Arab mobs on the street. Apparently, there’s Palestinian wilding going around.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that was shot down by the IDF early Tuesday morning has now been revealed to have been produced by Iran.
The aircraft was being monitored by its air control units; the IDF collected the debris from the drone after it was intercepted near Israel’s border with Jordan.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas the remains of the armed Iranian UAV.
It is still not clear whether the drone was launched at Israel from Iraq, or from Syria.
“While we were engaged in these hostilities a few days ago, Iran sent an armed drone from Iraq or from Syria,” Netanyahu said.
Iranian forces launched an armed drone, which our forces intercepted on the border between Israel and Jordan.
“I think that says everything about the true patron of terror in the Middle East and in the world,” the prime minister told the reporters at a joint news briefing with the German foreign minister. “Iran.”
German Foreign Minister Tours Rocket-Ravaged Homes
Israeli officials also took Maas on a tour of the some of the damaged Israeli residential buildings that were struck by Hamas rockets.
“We appreciate the international support for our right to defend ourselves from terrorists who fire thousands of rockets, trying to kill as many people as possible,” Maas was told.
Hamas has fired more than 4,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians in the south and center of the country since a week ago, when the terror group launched seven rockets at Jerusalem and surrounding communities on Jerusalem Day – igniting the current military campaign by Israel, “Operation Guardian of the Walls”.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Jewish activists accused powerful Democrats in the New York congressional delegation of cowering to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other leftist House members of the “Squad” by failing to forcefully stand up for Israel during its fight with Hamas in the Gaza strip.
“Chuck Schumer? Who?,” a frustrated Michael Nussbaum, president of the Queens Council of Jewish Organizations, said sarcastically of the powerful Senate majority leader who represents New York.
“I’m surprised and disappointed. Members of the New York congressional delegation who have a lot of sway have not spoken out forcefully to defend Israel, and they have not denounced AOC or corrected her,” said Nussbaum.
Ocasio-Cortez and other Squad members including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilham Omar (D-Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced a resolution Wednesday to halt the President Biden-approved sale of $735 million in weapons to Israel.
“At a time when so many, including President Biden, support a ceasefire, we should not be sending ‘direct attack’ weaponry to Prime Minister Netanyahu to prolong this violence,” AOC said of Israel’s prime minister in a statement.
Amid the destruction and lives killed, Ocasio-Cortez, in a tweet clearly aimed at Israel, said, “Apartheid states are not democracies.”
Nussbaum and other activists are seething that the New York pols who claim to be pro-Israel have been quiet and meek, giving Israel critics like AOC a leg up in the war of public opinion.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
ערבים פורעים במופע אלימות מזוויע מלבישים לבנה לפרצוף של ערביה תושבת מזרח ירושלים כשהיא עברה בשער שכם. טעות בזיהוי? לא, חיות האדם האלה עם דם בעיניהם. pic.twitter.com/idUPlgoCAM
— חיים אלקסלסי (@keslasy) May 19, 2021
A case of mistaken identity led to a vicious Arab terror attack on an elderly, deaf Arab women in the Old City of Jerusalem on Wednesday night.
The woman was passing through the Nablus Gate (Sha’ar Shechem) in the Old City of Jerusalem when she was hit in the face with a brick by an Arab attacker, according to a report by Israel’s Channel 13 News.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Axios:
So far, Schumer has largely been silent even as other historically fierce defenders of Israel, such as Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), have spoken up.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s longtime support for Israel puts him on a collision course with the progressive wing of his party as the conflict between Israel and Hamas worsens.
Why it matters: This is the toughest political position the New York Democrat has been in since becoming majority leader. The fighting in the Middle East is dividing his party — and creating a clear rift among its different wings.
The backdrop: Schumer, the first Jewish Senate majority leader, rose to prominence in part thanks to a career in New York politics built on a foundation of pro-Israel credentials.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Health Ministry officials in Sweden have launched a review into the actions of a rabbi and physician for circumcising Jewish infants without anesthesia.
Separately, the parliament in neighboring Denmark on Tuesday voted against a nonbinding draft motion calling on the government to ban the nonmedical circumcision of boys.
The review in Sweden of Rabbi Dr. Peter Borenstein followed articles in Svenska Dagbladet in which other doctors criticized him for not administering anesthesia. Borenstein also is a longtime mohel, the Hebrew word for one who performs ritual circumcisions.
Mohels typically do not use anesthetic. Many, including Borenstein, offer the babies a few drops of a sugar-rich liquid as a distraction. The daily called this “sugarwater painkiller.”
The Swedish Health and Care Inspectorate said it deems Borenstein’s performance “inadequate” and has demanded an explanation by May 28, the news site Lakartidningen on Wednesday reported.
In Sweden, the law allows nonmedical circumcision of boys but requires the presence of licensed medical personnel. Therefore, mohels in Sweden tend to be physicians as well.
Svenska Dagbladet implied that Borenstein was in violation of medical procedures and ethics, which he and the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities have denied.
Circumcision is controversial in Scandinavia, where child welfare activists say it’s a form of abuse. Far-right activists also oppose the practice as a foreign import.
In Denmark, the motion calling for a ban was defeated in a 62-32 vote. Anti-circumcision activists had gathered more than the necessary 50,000 signatures on a 2018 petition needed to submit the measure for a parliamentary vote.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
The head of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party on Wednesday threw his backing behind the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the deadly crush at a religious festival last month that killed 45 people, including many children.
No arrests have been made since the April 30 tragedy, the deadliest civilian disaster in Israel’s history, which is being investigated by the Israel Police.
UTJ MK Moshe Gafni chairs the Knesset Finance Committee, which held a session Tuesday on the disaster during Lag B’Omer celebrations at Mount Meron in northern Israel. In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said the parliamentary committee agreed the “correct way” to proceed is to form an official commission of inquiry, which would be led by a Supreme Court justice.
Gafni also said he would chair further committee meetings on the matter “so we can offer solutions for the future so a case like this will not happen again.”
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Klaus Kleinau is one of the surviving remorseful members of the Waffen-SS. |
The last remaining World War II Nazis are living comfortably at home in Germany, leading normal lives and, in some instances, are still proud of their participation in one of world history’s biggest atrocities.
In the chilling new documentary “Final Account,” out Friday, British director Luke Holland, whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust, interviewed several former Nazis about their memories of the murderous Third Reich. It took him 10 years to track his elderly subjects down and capture them on film. And Holland himself died in June shortly after completing his movie.
Deemed functionaries rather than war criminals by the German government, these former medics, SS officers and concentration camp guards were able to return to their communities after World War II as if nothing had happened.
For many of them, “nothing” is the operative word today.
“The majority of those under Naziism said after the war, again and again, firstly ‘I didn’t know,’ secondly ‘I didn’t take part,’ and thirdly, ‘If I had known, I would have acted differently,’ ” Klaus Kleinau, a remorseful member of the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS, said in the doc.
Kleinau believes this to be a widespread delusion. “Everybody tries to distance themselves from the massacres committed under Naziism, especially those of the final years. And that’s why so many said: ‘I wasn’t a Nazi.’ ”
The interviewees mostly began their participation with the Nazis when they joined the Jungvolk, a mandatory program for boys between the ages of 10 and 14. After that, they advanced to Hitler Youth or the female equivalent, the League of German Girls.
A few recalled being excited to attend the camp as children.
“This is my Hitler Youth membership card,” said Hans Werk, who eventually became part of the Waffen-SS. “I joined the Jungvolk at the age of 10 and received this. I joined on the 1st of May 1937. Even before I was 10 years old. I couldn’t wait.” Werk later expressed deep and sincere regret about his wartime actions.
An unnamed woman added: “We didn’t support the party. But we liked the uniform. We went along with it, because we enjoyed it — putting on the uniform and going on marches.”
But the innocence was a ruse. From a young age, they were being taught to hate.
“We learned to read with the normal alphabet book, but we also had a Jew-themed alphabet book,” Werk said. “It had a caricature of a Jew for each letter. I remember one in particular: a butcher’s shop that was really greasy and filthy. A disgusting Jew with dirty long hair and a hat, behind the counter. Next to him, a blond German girl with a white apron. He had his hand where it shouldn’t be.”
Although many subjects expressed shame for their role in the Holocaust, others have no regrets at all. When one anonymous man remembered calling guards from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to bring back escaped Jewish prisoners who were hiding in his farm’s pigsty, he laughed.
Asked if he still “honors” Adolf Hitler, Karl Hollander, a former SS lieutenant who kept his swastika badges, said, “I still do. The idea was correct … I don’t share the opinion that they should be murdered. They should have been driven out to another country where they could rule themselves. This would have saved a great deal of grief.”
Kurt Sametreiter of the SS also stood his ground.
“The Waffen-SS had nothing to do with the terrible and brutal treatment of Jews and dissidents and the concentration camp,” said Sametreiter. “We were front-line soldiers … I have no regrets, and I will never regret being with that unit. Truly not. A camaraderie like that … You could rely on every man 100%. There was nothing that could go wrong. That was the beauty of it.”
When asked if 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, Sametreiter denied it.
“That’s a joke,” he said. “I don’t believe it. I will not believe it. It can’t be. Today they say. Excuse me, but it’s the Jew who puts it like that. The scale that is claimed today, I deny that, too. I deny it. It didn’t happen.”
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the rocket was launched in Gaza and fell inside Gaza and killed “almost an entire family.” Conricus added that “this wasn’t an Israeli attack.”
A senior military officer on Wednesday said the incident was investigated, and Israel did not strike the Beit Hanoun area where the family members were killed that night.
The officer said a total of 700 rockets — roughly one-fifth of the total launched by Palestinian militants — failed to reach Israel and landed inside Gaza. He provided no further estimates on how many Palestinians had been harmed by errant rocket fire. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity under military briefing guidelines.
Israel says Hamas is responsible for civilian deaths because the militant group uses residential areas for cover to fire rockets and carry out other military operations. Twelve people in Israel have also been killed, 10 by rocket fire aimed at Israeli towns and cities. Two people died in accidents while rushing for shelter.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Mrs Gittel Fuchs Ruben Davidson |
R' Amrom Blau and is second wife Ruth Madeleine Lucette Blau |
Mrs Davidson was born in Denmark, 10 months after WW2 to a Gerer family, and in this story she relates how she wound up getting to know Ruth and her subsequent marriage to Uriel.
This is where it gets interesting and crazy....
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Tlaib's grandmother lives in the village of Beit Ur Al-Fauqa, near Ramallah. The village is under Palestinian Authority control.
Speaking in Dearborn, Michigan, Biden said: “I admire your intellect, I admire your passion and I admire your concern for so many other people.”
“From my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family are well. I promise you, I’ll do everything to see that they are.”
Biden's comments follow Tlaib's criticism of his response to Operation Guardian of the Walls, in which Israel is retaliating for Hamas' attacks on Israeli civilian centers. Though Hamas uses Gazans as human shields, Israel does everything possible to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, including warning of impending strikes several hours prior, to allow the civilians in the area to evacuate.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
America’s foreign-policy establishment and peace-process industry are having a field day: The latest round of fighting between Israel and the terror group Hamas, they insist, has sounded the death knell for the Abraham Accords, the Trump-brokered peace treaties between the Jewish state and several Muslim nations.
Leading the Schadenfreude Brigade was White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who on Tuesday declared from her podium:
“We don’t think [the accords] did anything constructive, really, to bring an end to the longstanding conflict in the Middle East.” The peace-processors failed for decades to make Mideast progress, and the Gaza flare-up gives them and their DC mouthpieces (like Psaki) a cheap chance to crow, “I told you so.”
Reality disagrees, however.
The monumental agreements signed last year will continue to flourish, because their foundations remain solid — whereas doing things the peace-processors’ way will return America to the failures of the past.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
Facebook shut down a pro-Israel page that reportedly had millions of followers as the worst conflict in years continued in the Gaza Strip.
“Jerusalem Prayer Group” founder Mike Evans claimed that critics targeted the site by posting “more than a million” comments then reporting they had never posted to the site, CBN reported.
“There was an organized attempt by radical Islamic organizations to achieve this objective,” Evans was quoted as saying.
“It was a very clever, deceptive plan by Islamic radicals.”
He also said the posts included anti-Semitic comments.
Evans didn’t offer proof for the claim but was quoted in Arutz Sheva 7 saying he hadn’t spoken to Facebook representatives since the page was shuttered on Friday.
A Facebook company spokesperson said: “We removed Jerusalem Prayer Team’s Facebook Page for violating our rules against spam and inauthentic behavior.”
The Facebook page became part of a conspiracy theory on social media, in which users said they found they were automatically following the page without ever having chosen to.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
But... Men CAN'T give birth. https://t.co/mOXM1EOGsN
— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) May 18, 2021
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
When you are 24 and break into a 73 yr old’s house and threaten him and his wife with a knife and didn’t know he was a boxer, a marine, and hand to hand combat instructor.🥊
— 🇺🇸 American Sweet Tea 🇺🇸 (@AmeliePoussin) May 17, 2021
((No second amendment used, though!)) 🤣😜 pic.twitter.com/HgKCRLAr44
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME