Here’s one they left out of the history textbooks. A recent French film, Free Men, brought to light the remarkable true history of how Muslims gave sanctuary to French Jews in Nazi-occupied Paris during Second World War. An untold “Oscar Schindler” story, the film is inspired by actual events and in this case, our ‘Schindler’ is Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris until 1954.

Underneath the fortress of mosaics and tranquil gardens occupying an entire city block in the Latin Quarter, it is revealed the mosque’s underground caverns once served as a refuge for resistance fighters and French Jews, where they could be provided with certificates of Muslim identity. Meanwhile upstairs, Benghabrit, a wise Algerian-born religious and political leader, was giving tours of the mosque to Nazi officers and their wives, unaware of what was transpiring right under their feet.

A North African Jewish man named Albert Assouline, who had escaped from a German prison camp, wrote about his experience hiding in the mosque:

“No fewer than 1,732 resistance fighters found refuge in its underground caverns. These included Muslim escapees but also Christians and Jews. The latter were by far the most numerous.”

Wait. Is the entire Oklahoma legislature actually laughing at a straight-up, unabashed, unambiguous anti-Semitic insult?! These fuckers are so insulated from reality by their own bigotry that it really is nearly unbelievable … 

===

The Republican Co-Majority Leader of the Oklahoma House of Representatives casually apologized yesterday for casually using an antisemitic slur during a debate on a bill to repeal an old law prohibiting retailers from selling their items at a loss.

The bill in question — SB 550 — overturns a 70-year-old ban on selling products at less than 6% above cost which was aimed at preventing big-box retailers from putting smaller competitors out of business with so-called “loss-leaders.”

In defending the bill, Rep. Dennis Johnson (R-Duncan), who is a small business owner himself, asserted that service will always win over price.

“[Customers] might try to Jew me down on the price,” Johnson added. “That’s fine. You know what? That’s free market as well.”

After it was pointed out to him that the phrase “to Jew down” might be considered offensive by, say, Jewish people, Johnson half-heartedly apologized.

“I apologize to the Jews,” he said, to laughter from his colleagues in the House. “They’re good small business men as well.”

It’s worth noting that there isn’t a single Jewish member in either house of the Oklahoma Legislature.

The irony is that even if this were intended as a “joke,” it speaks to a reality at Harvard, with its Bro-culture dominated by wealthy white privileged elite men, its racism, and its prevalence of sexual assault and rape amongst the student body.

===

Students in all nine River Houses received sealed invitations under their doors early Friday morning professing to come from “Harvard’s Newest Final Club”.
 
The invitation listed three virtues, each with asterisked notes. The first principle, “Inclusion,” came with the footnote, “Jews need not apply.” The second, “Diversity,” was followed by the words, “Seriously, no fucking Jews. Coloreds OK.” And the third, “Love,” directed readers to the term “Rophynol”—a misspelled rendering of rohypnol, the date rape drug better known as roofies

 … Christopher H. Cleveland ’14, president of the Harvard Black Men’s Forum, wrote in an email that he thought the invitations, regardless of their intent, had gone too far.

“As students of a university with a very peculiar history concerning ethnic and racial relations, we should be working together to build up each other,” Cleveland wrote. The first final club to admit a black member was the Spee, in 1965; the Porcellian had no black members until 1983.

“Publications that alienate specific ethnic and racial groups are not aligned with that goal,” Cleveland added.

The invitations are not the first of their kind. In 2010, a group of undergraduates distributed flyers under doors, in the tradition common to real final clubs, encouraging students to refrain from joining the clubs or attending their parties. Organizers claimed that Harvard’s eight male and five female final clubs, which are not recognized by the University, promote an exclusive and dangerous social environment. And in a similar campaign in 2011, organizers slipped letters under the doors of sophomore men asking them not to participate in punch in part due to the “unequal access to social space” enjoyed by the male clubs over the female ones.

Now this is legit antisemitism (i.e., the difference between criticizing Israel’s brutal oppression of the Palestinians versus calling for all Jewish citizens of a nation to be registered as “national security risks” and virtually affixed with a yellow Star of David patch).

===

A Hungarian far-right politician urged the government to draw up lists of Jews who pose a “national security risk”, stirring outrage among Jewish leaders who saw echoes of fascist policies that led to the Holocaust.

Marton Gyongyosi, a leader of Hungary’s third-strongest political party Jobbik, said the list was necessary because of heightened tensions following the brief conflict in Gaza and should include members of parliament.

Opponents have condemned frequent anti-Semitic slurs and tough rhetoric against the Roma minority by Gyongyosi’s party as populist point scoring ahead of elections in 2014.

Jobbik has never called publicly for lists of Jews.

Gyongyosi’s call came after Foreign Ministry State Secretary Zsolt Nemeth said Budapest favored a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as benefiting both Israelis with Hungarian ancestry, Hungarian Jews and Palestinians in Hungary.

“I think such a conflict makes it timely to tally up people of Jewish ancestry who live here, especially in the Hungarian Parliament and the Hungarian government, who, indeed, pose a national security risk to Hungary.”

Who are we?

Who are we? We are Jews. We are inspired by Jewish values in our liturgy and our history to support freedom and dignity for all people.  We believe in the sanctity of all human life, including the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians. Therefore, we oppose Israel’s current military assault Gaza.  We also oppose Israel’s crippling six year siege of Gaza, as well as occupation of Palestine.

Standing up against oppression is never easy. Neither is being critical of our own communities. Still, we continue to publicly oppose the attack on Gaza, because we have been asked by Palestinians to raise awareness about their struggle in our communities. In the past, Jewish silence and complicity with Israeli policy has perpetuated injustice against the Palestinian people. By publicly taking a stand, we can help Palestinians break this cycle and realize their freedom. Increasing numbers of Jews are speaking out everyday. Israelis are protesting in the streets and refusing to serve in the occupied territories. Across the world, Jews are supporting Palestinian calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions. By speaking out and taking action, we can reach a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians. Join us.

This project is for Jews who are hesitant to speak out against Israel’s assault on Gaza. We are here to let you know that we know where you are coming from. Many of us felt alone when we first joined in solidarity with Palestinians. But we’re not. Together, we can make a powerful statement and challenge the violence carried out in our names. Join us in actively standing up against oppression and support Palestinian struggles for human rights and freedom.

I thought you were joking. “Zionist” is a term that Israelis use to describe themselves. It is not an anti-Jewish epithet. It’s a political ideology.

Even the current Prime Minister of Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu, publicly refers to himself as a Zionist and sees the strengthening of Israel as a “Zionist” project. (Cf., http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=253911)

Indeed, the Israeli government and its apologists often talk about how their main enemies in the world are ‘anti-Zionists.’

Moreover, the very “father” of the modern state of Israel, Theodor Herzl, is also the founder of modern Zionist ideology, which he spent his entire life promoting.

But if this is all news to you, I marvel at the level of ignorance you seem to have regarding the state of Israel and its self-identified project in the world.

I am a proud anti-Zionist, not because of some preposterous notion that I am anti-Semitic, but rather because I am against the very basic Zionist project of creating an exclusivist Jewish state in the Middle East predicated on the disenfranchisement of all other groups of people living there.

Though Israelis proudly call themselves “Zionists,” and see it as a sort of liberatory concept, I maintain that Zionism is actually inherently racist, imperialist, and oppressive, and should therefore be opposed.

Rather than seeking the liberation of Jews (though, in reality, Zionism only promises freedom for a minority of world Jewry) through colluding with the imperialist powers of the world in oppressing other social groups of people, I seek the emancipation of all of humanity from the evils of racism, poverty, and war.

That’s also why I am a revolutionary socialist. 

Holy cow. This has got to be the single-most absurd and idiotic (not to mention horribly misognyist) allusion to the famous anti-Nazi poem written by the German Pastor, Martin Niemöller, in 1946.

===

cocknbull:

joetomcollins:

I’ve ranted about this before. This is just the latest excuse for feminists to ignore a guy who they are leading on and using, but they are not attracted too. …and yes… Women DO do that!

I feel like paraphrasing Martin Niemöller.

When the Feminists came for the Rapists,
I remained silent;
I was not a Rapist.

When they locked up the stalkers,
I remained silent;
I was not a stalker.

When they came for the Players,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Player.

When they came for the men who they got bored of,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a some one they were bored of yet.

When they came for me, the nice guy,
there was no one left to speak out.

I actually don’t even understand the comparisons that are being made here. I’m dumbfounded. I mean, I get the whole “feminazi” fallacy—that’s loud and clear.

But is the author seriously suggesting there’s something wrong with locking up rapists? Should you be protesting the prosecution of rapists? Do you feel like that’s the first step toward the next Holocaust? Is it comparable with having people locked up for their political affiliations?

Is it somehow wrong to suggest people have a right to a certain level of comfort and privacy? Am I a fascist for thinking it’s unreasonable to ignore an autonomous human being’s wish to be left alone and instead continue to harass them? Is preventing dangerous people from behaving this way on par with locking up the trade unionists?

And merely criticizing the misogynistic ideologies “Players” perpetuate is akin to slaughtering Jewish men and women?

These comparisons become more and more nonsensical.

You’re a fuckhead.

This paper, written by a junior in high school, has caused much debate on various activist listserves that I am on. Immediately below is my contribution to one of those debates, followed by the text from the relevant article on “Mondoweiss”:  

As an American Jew, I just want to say that I identify 100% with Jesse Lieberfield and where he’s coming from. I had a similar experience when I approached my 18th year and was forced to come to terms with the contradiction between my devotion to social justice on the one hand, and on the other, the land of my supposed ‘birth-right’ — the state of Israel.

The more I learned about the history of Israel, and the more I followed its contemporary behavior, the more appalled I became. (For instance, see this recent article from Ha’aretz, which reports on the latest injustice to set my blood boiling - http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/supreme-court-upholds-ban-on-palestinians-living-with-israeli-spouses-1.406812).

It’s sickening to me that any Jew, anywhere in the world, with absolutely no connection to the land, can become a citizen of Israel and even move onto land recently occupied by an Arab Palestinian, while that very Arab Palestinian, including numerous others living in refugee camps and Occupied Territories in the immediate vicinity, are not allowed back onto the land.

I agree with Jesse that I feel completely unable to defend the state of Israel any more than I would have been able to defend the state of Georgia or Mississippi during the early 1960’s.

Until Israel grants complete equality of access to the land, the resources, and job opportunities to both Jews and Muslims, Arabs, Africans, etc., and stops its disproportionate use of violence against Palestinians — including children, civilians, etc. (see http://sherrytalksback.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/nys-deadly-deal-with-apartheid/) — I cannot but wish for the ‘destruction’ (or dismantling, undoing, abolition, or whatever other term you prefer) of the apartheid state of Israel as it currently exists, so that it can be rebulit on a more just, equitable, and peaceful basis.

===

I wish I were in Pittsburgh. This afternoon at Carnegie Mellon University, an 11th-grader will step nervously to a microphone and deliver a hammer blow to American Jewish support for Israel.

Jesse Lieberfeld, 17, a junior at Winchester Thurston High School, will read an essay, “Fighting a Forbidden Battle: How I Stopped Covering Up for a Hidden Wrong,” about how he sees himself in Martin Luther King, because of his own struggle with his religion’s ordination of support for Israel. The piece is one of two winners in the annual Martin Luther King Jr. essay-writing contest sponsored by the university. It is brave and clear and necessary:

the term “Israeli/Palestinian Conflict” was no more accurate than calling the Civil Rights Movement the “Caucasian/ African-American Conflict.”

In both cases, the expression was a blatant euphemism: it gave the impression that this was a dispute among equals and that both held an equal share of the blame. However, in both, there was clearly an oppressor and an oppressed,

I once belonged to a wonderful religion. I belonged to a religion that allows those of us who believe in it to feel that we are the greatest people in the world — and feel sorry for ourselves at the same time…

This last mandatory belief [in Israel] was one which I never fully understood, but I always kept the doubts I had about Israel’s spotless reputation to the back of my mind. “Our people” were fighting a war, one I did not fully comprehend, but I naturally assumed that it must be justified. We would never be so amoral as to fight an unjust war.

Yet as I came to learn more about our so-called “conflict” with the Palestinians, I grew more concerned.

The Post-Gazette warned readers about what Lieberfeld was writing with an intro about “blunt talk” and “searingly honest” pieces—the other winner is Erika Drain’s essay about black identity. That brainy 17-year-old Jews, the future of my ethnic/religious group in the U.S., are wrestling with the Israel question in the public square spells doom for the lobby, and in turn for Israel’s heedless conduct.

Thousands of Iranian Jews and their descendants owe their lives to a Muslim diplomat in wartime Paris, according to a new book. In The Lion’s Shadow tells how Abdol-Hossein Sardari risked everything to help fellow Iranians escape the Nazis.