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California school boards forge ahead with controversial ethnic-studies curriculum

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California school boards forge ahead with controversial ethnic-studies curriculum

The proposed educational directive has been accused of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias, with little, if any, Jewish input into what will be taught to public-school students.

More than a dozen California school boards have adopted resolutions in support of the state’s proposed ethnic-studies model curriculum, despite it have come under fire for containing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content, and not addressing issues of anti-Semitism or including Jewish Americans.

“Over the past few months … individuals, who call themselves ‘Save CA Ethnic Studies,’ have attempted to take advantage of state and local education officials’ focus on addressing the COVID-19 crisis to get school boards throughout the state to rubber-stamp, with little or no discussion, a resolution that ‘affirms support of the California Ethnic Studies Model Draft … ,’ ” read a letter written by some 88 state and national organizations to the . California Department of Education (CDE).       

The groups also accused the Save CA Ethnic Studies campaign of deceiving local officials.

“School board members asked to vote on the resolution are not shown the original draft curriculum, and not informed about the enormous outpouring of criticism it engendered or that a CDE process is well underway for the curriculum’s redesign,” said the letter.

As such, local school officials believe that they are voting to support a 2016 California law to establish ethnic-studies curriculum, known as AB-2016.

School board members are “led to believe that in voting for the resolution they are showing support for AB-2016 and affirming the importance of ethnic studies classes in general, rather than endorsing the highly controversial draft curriculum that was condemned by dozens of state leaders and tens of thousands of Californians,” stated the letter.

The proposed curriculum section on “Arab American Studies Course Outline” contains a number of passages concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such as “Direct Action Front for Palestine and Black Lives Matter,” “Call to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel” and “Comparative Border Studies: Palestine and Mexico.” It also includes studying national figures such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.); Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.); the late Columbia University professor Edward Said; Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour; the late radio personality Casey Kasem; actress Alia Shawkat; and the late White House correspondent Helen Thomas—all of whom are associated with explicitly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rhetoric, and in the case of the congresswomen, a push to enact legislation punishing Israel.

The California State Capitol in Sacramento. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Last year, following outrage by California lawmakers, Jewish and pro-Israel groups, and the Jewish and non-Jewish community at large for such bias and omissions, the California Board of Education announced that it would substantially revise its current draft ethnic-studies curriculum, noting that it did “not yet fully align with the statutory requirements” and the state’s guidelines.

In August 2019, the California State Board of Education stated that “the current draft model curriculum falls short and needs to be substantially redesigned. Following the Instructional Quality Commission’s review and response to all public comments, a new draft will be developed for State Board of Education review and potential approval. The Board will ultimately adopt an ethnic studies model curriculum that aligns to California’s values.”

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond agreed, calling for “greater balance to this entire curriculum,” including in how it handles Jewish Americans, anti-Semitism and Israel.

In January, California’s Department of Education announced that it will recommend that the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) focus on four “foundational” groups: African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Chicano/Latinos and Native Americans. That move was criticized for its narrow focus on “people of color” while ignoring several other significant ethnic or religious groups in the state, such as the Jewish, Greek and Armenian communities.

Despite the ongoing debate over the ethnic-studies curriculum, at least 13 school boards in the state have recently passed resolutions affirming their support for the ethnic-studies model curriculum draft: Hayward (April 22), Castro Valley (April 23), Albany (April 28), San Francisco (April 28), West Contra Costa (May 6), Alhambra (May 19), Oakland (May 27), South San Francisco (May 28), Jefferson Union (June 2), Jefferson Elementary (June 17), San Mateo Foster City (June 18), El Monte Union (June 24) and Santa Rosa City Schools (July 8).

“Save CA Ethnic Studies’ misleading campaign to get district school-board members throughout California to adopt disingenuous resolutions in support of the original draft is a clear attempt to circumvent the state’s official plan for revisions of the model curriculum,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, director of the AMCHA Initiative, which initiated the letter to the California Department of Education.

‘Unclear what we are supporting’

For example, the Oakland Unified School Board passed a resolution with four votes in favor, two against and one abstention, stating that it supports “the California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Draft as written,” including content about Pacific Islanders, Arab Americans, Central Americans, and West Asian Americans and to keep “its framing and language of the discipline, with additional scaffolding as necessary to be inclusive and supportive of multiple users.”

During its May 27, 2020 school-board meeting, Oakland Unified School Board president Jody London raised questions over the ethnic-studies curriculum that they were considering. She said in theory, she supported having an ethnic-studies model curriculum and passing a resolution setting forth the values the Oakland School Board would like to see in the state’s model curriculum, instead of one that interferes with the state’s process, according to meeting notes. This “resolution doesn’t allow [revisions]” and is “unclear about what is it we are supporting,” London told the board.

Similarly, questions were also raised after Albany Unified School Board voted to support the ethnic-studies curriculum.

On April 28, the Albany Unified School Board unanimously passed a resolution that “affirms support for the current California Assembly Bill 2016 Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum draft” and for the curriculum to “keep the disciplinary language, framing, guiding values, principles and outcomes of the field of Ethnic Studies.”

After that meeting, it got some public pushback so, on June 9, the board discussed whether to revisit that vote.

Among the public input the Albany Board received was a statement from the presidents of the California Latino School Boards Association. Asian Pacific Islander School Board Members Association and the Association of Black School Educators supporting the model curriculum with “additional integration of Jewish Americans and other ethnic groups, as well as a definition of anti-Semitism … as long as they do not decenter communities of color in any way from the curriculum.”

The Anti-Defamation League’s Central Pacific Region, writing in favor of the Albany Board revisiting this resolution, stated that its resolution “is not about supporting Ethnic Studies but instead endorses the polarizing and offensive political views. The California Department of Education (CDE) already rejected the ESMC for its failure to meet the goals of the authorizing statute AB-2016. The CDE is making substantive revisions to be made public in August 2020. The Resolution before you is misleading and contravenes the legal process.”

The Albany Unified resolution was not revisited for another vote.

Curriculum ‘should be free from politics’

As local school boards debate the issues regarding the ethnic-studies curriculum, a bill in the California Assembly is being pushed forward that would require ethnic studies as part of graduation requirement, known as AB-331.

AB-331 is a bill that, if passed, would require ethnic studies as a California high school graduation requirement, starting with the 2024–25 school year, “based on” the ethnic studies model curriculum developed by the state.

It was introduced in the Spring of 2019 by Assembly Member Jose Medina, a Democrat who chairs the Assembly Higher Education Committee and is a member of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.

Medina suspended his bill after the summer 2019 ethnic-studies draft curriculum controversy, he said because “it is more important to me that we get it right than we do it quickly…My goal as a teacher was to leave students who could think for themselves.”

He also said, “I did not feel comfortable having the senate vote on a curriculum that is not finished.” “The curriculum would be stronger if it were more comprehensive of additional groups’ experiences.”

In a seeming reversal, Medina is now pushing forward with the bill ahead of the Aug. 31 deadline for bills introduced during the legislative session to pass, before the ethnic studies model curriculum is finalized.

“#AB331 is moving through the legislative process, but we still need your help to make #EthnicStudiesforALL! Keep up the momentum to get AB 331 out of the Senate Appropriations Committee at the end of July. Our history should not be optional,” tweeted Medina on June 26.

AB-331 is scheduled to be heard by the California Senate Appropriations Committee on July 31. If it passes there, it will be voted on by the California Senate and Assembly ahead of the August deadline. If that passes, it will go to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for signature or veto before the model curriculum is approved by the state.

A Medina spokesperson told JNS that the assembly member “has been working with the Jewish community and different Jewish groups.”

Jewish and pro-Israel groups have called for Jews to be represented in the ethnic-studies curriculum.

The AMCHA Initiative is “incredibly concerned about this deceitful maneuver by those who helped write the deeply flawed and widely condemned initial draft curriculum,” Rossman-Benjamin told JNS.

“Regarding AB-331, at a time when our country is in deep distress in so many ways and we’re so divided and so polarized, it is critical that the curriculum put forth by the state aims to unite people and will help create a more positive, healthier climate in California’s school,” said Rossman-Benjamin. “That was the problem with the initial draft curriculum; it wasn’t meant to educate students but to promote a political agenda, a radical one at that.”

Therefore, continued Rossman-Benjamin, “I think it’s important that we know that the curriculum which will form the basis for what is taught in California high schools and mandated by AB-331 will be free of politics. Curriculums should educate, not indoctrinate students into the particular political ideology of its drafters.”

Sarah Levin, executive director of JIMENA: Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa, told JNS that her organization “looks forward to our schools and students receiving the highest quality, most rigorous ethnic-studies curriculum, which is surely not the earlier draft curriculum that omitted the voices of diverse Middle Eastern Diasporic communities that live in California.”

She continued, “We are proud to work together with a broad coalition of minority voices from inside and outside the Jewish community, including Coptic-Christians, Assyrian-Christians and Iranians of different faiths, to support the creation of an Ethnic Studies Curriculum that is accurate, balanced and reflects Middle Eastern student demographics in California.”

(JNS).

MK: We Are One Step from Total Anarchy

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MK: We Are One Step from Total Anarchy

Addressing a demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s Residence in Yerushalayim, during which some 50 protesters were arrested following clashes with police, Knesset Minister David Amsalem told the Knesset plenum on Wednesday, “I believe that last night we witnessed one of the most shameful and degrading sights in the history of Israeli democracy in the State of Israel.”

“We saw last night the images from Jerusalem. We saw barricades flying at police officers, eggs thrown at security forces, rioting, severe physical violence as well as verbal violence – some of the most severe we have ever seen in these parts.”

He said hundreds of protesters did not wear masks nor adhered to the social distancing regulations, adding that “what the anarchist left is doing over the past few days is not an expression of distress due to the corona (pandemic); it is not the distress of businesses that are in (financial difficulty). What we saw (last night) and have seen in the past few days is criminality and violence with the sole purpose of overthrowing a prime minister in the State of Israel in any way, just not in a democratic way.”

“This violence stems from the fact that the left has been unable to replace in the election campaigns the right-wing government in the State of Israel, and therefore it is redirecting its frustration to most violent channels,” Minister Amsalem stated.

(Matzav).

California pastor to defy Newsom’s shutdown, possibly run for governor

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California pastor to defy Newsom’s shutdown, possibly run for governor

We need to collectively take a stand,’ the pastor said.

A California pastor said he would defy Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest coronavirus lockdown — and maybe even challenge him in the polls.

Pastor Greg Fairrington, leader of 3,500-members Destiny Christian Church outside of Sacramento, said he plans to continue holding in-person services despite Newsom’s second shutdown announced Monday. The Golden State has had a steep surge of COVID-19 cases, now second to New York.

“If we don’t take a stand, all we’re doing is kicking the can down the road and we will be having the same conversations in three weeks, six weeks, six months, or even a year from now,” Fairrington told Fox News.

“We need to collectively take a stand and say, ‘We are the church, and we have a biblical and First Amendment right to worship together,’” the pastor added.

During a livestream service earlier this month, Fairrington floated a run for governor if he gets enough support, The Sacramento Bee reports.

After 11 weeks of online-only services, Fairrington reopened on May 31 along with 1,000 other congregations across the state. Days before, President Trump had declared houses of worship “essential” and stated he would override any governors that don’t allow them to open.

“We believe that the local church serves a critical mental health, spiritual and community outreach role in our communities, as affirmed by our justice department and executive branch of government,” the church said in a statement.

They will continue to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines of social distancing, wearing masks, temperature checks, and sanitation “out of an abundance of care for the people of our church and surrounding community.” Services will continue to be broadcast to around 40,000 viewers.

“Our mandate is to obey the Word of God, and worship is a part of what we do as a church corporately,” the church’s statement read. “As we pull together as a community, we choose to live in faith over fear. Just like our currency states, our founders pledged, and our churches believe: In God We Trust.”

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, megachurch pastor Andy Stanley announced this week he will not resume in-person services until next year.

(Fox News).

Want to fight racism? Begin by resisting BLM ideology

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Want to fight racism? Begin by resisting BLM ideology

If Jews want to help make America a more just nation, they must oppose
the destructive racial teachings about “white culture,” not support them.

After several weeks in which the country seemed to careen out of control with one bizarre and horrifying event after another—from the coronavirus outbreak to protests, riots and the toppling of statues—it seems as if anything is possible. But news that the National Museum of African American History and Culture had posted a primer on its website (it is closed due to the pandemic) of what constitutes “Whiteness and White Culture” may have been the moment when the nation truly jumped the shark in terms of losing its collective mind in a moral panic about racism.

The museum, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, put down such things as individualism, belief in the family, work ethic, faith in a single god, respect for authority, belief in justice and majority rule, the written word and politeness, as elements of “whiteness” to be treated with suspicion rather than as universal values that all people should respect.

It was just one more piece of evidence that a justified concern about police brutality brought to the fore by the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has now morphed into something else entirely. As absurd as it may seem to those not immersed in woke race ideology, this display makes sense to those who are promoting the Black Lives Matter movement, intersectional studies and revisionist versions of American history like The New York Times’ “1619 Project.”

As such, the discussion about racism has to no small extent been hijacked by those who seek not so much a moral reckoning about reforming society as a revolution that aims to overturn the moral foundations of American culture and thought. The obsession with so-called toxic “whiteness” that must be purged, even if it causes grievous damage not merely to the nation but to African-Americans, must be recognized.

If that is the direction in which the BLM movement is headed, it raises the question of where that leaves the African-American community’s long-standing ally on civil-rights issues: American Jewry. Should American Jews follow their liberal instincts and back this movement despite the implicit threat it poses to American support for Israel, as well as the way it seems to treat them as a particularly troublesome variety of toxic “whiteness?”

The answer from leading Jewish groups is an unqualified “yes.” Not only are they throwing their support behind the BLM movement and its troubling agenda of defunding/abolishing the police, but many Jews also seem to be acting as if even a willingness to question this decision is inherently racist rather than simple common sense.

As much as anything that American Jewry has done, it is the memory of the Jews who marched and sacrificed in the effort to end Jim Crow laws—and the awful legacy of segregation and discrimination against African-Americans—of which the vast majority are the most proud.

Indeed, to a group for whom the idea of social justice is integral not just to their political views but also to their conception of Judaism, support for civil rights is as much at the core of their conception of American Jewish identity.

So at a moment when the country is plunged into a furious debate about the persistence of racism, it is entirely natural that Jews should be fully engaged in this discussion. Most Jewish groups needed no prompting or pressure to go all in with respect to support of the Black Lives Matter movement, regardless of the connections of some of its elements to anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic beliefs.

Indeed, while some Jews expressed reluctance about making common cause with the BLM movement, umbrella groups, like the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which represents community relations councils and federations across the country, made it clear that they thought it would be deeply wrong for the Jewish community to hold back its support. The JCPA is arguing that for most of those involved, a 2014 platform that included attacks on Israel was meaningless.

There’s some truth to that since the phrase, “black lives matter,” is, at one and the same time, an anodyne phrase that everyone supports, as well as a radical coalition with a problematic agenda. But even the JCPA concedes that many of those involved with this decentralized movement include “some Israel critics, even anti-Semites, among those leading or supporting the fight for racial justice in this country.”

Still, it believes that this should not deter Jews from joining forces with them since “the Jewish community should not abandon the largest movement for racial justice in decades because of fear of a position, even one as objectionable as,” the BLM charter’s embrace of anti-Semitic BDS attacks on Israel.

The JCPA’s statement goes on to claim that “only by participating in BLM can we effectively share our concerns about anti-Semitism, the existing call to end military aid to Israel, or any other issues that get thrown in the mix going forward.”

Others believe the obligation to speak up for “Jews of color” means they must also suspend all disbelief when it comes to the BLM mantra.

That seems like normative CRC tactics in which the goal is to express solidarity with other groups and ultimately rally allies to support Jewish interests. But the BLM movement is not like the civil-rights groups that Jews worked with in the past, which shared a common belief that America was, despite past sins and flaws, an inherently just society that could be moved to correct its mistakes. To the contrary: the museum’s display and the entire tenor of a movement that seems determined to reject the entirety of America’s heritage of liberty and traditional mainstream values makes clear that anyone expecting BLM ideologues to join the fight against anti-Semitism, let alone BDS, is not paying attention.

Indeed, the recent surge of anti-Semitic comments from some African-American athletes and celebrities like DeSean Jackson, Nick Cannon and Ice Cube were largely ignored by BLM activists rather than condemned. While there were some blacks who did speak out, like basketball Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabaar and sports commentator Jemele Hill, they were the honorable exceptions who proved the rule and testified to the acceptance of Jew-hatred among many blacks.

Jewish groups, some of which are diffident about confronting African-Americans about anti-Semitism, aren’t likely to rally BLM advocates to confront this issue, let alone seek its sources, such as the widespread influence of vicious hate-monger Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam.

Unfortunately, many liberal Jews are not only failing to see the inherent problems that arise from backing radical BLM ideas like demonizing all police, but they are also buying into the group’s dangerous ideas about the perils of “whiteness,” which represent a particular threat to Jews as well as undermine black aspirations for advancement.

Accepting the ideological constructs behind the idea of White Fragility—the bestselling book that is a modern patent nostrum of foolishness about race—sends well-meaning people down a rabbit hole of rigid racialism that discards Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s hopes for a race-blind society. And yet that is exactly what many Jews are doing in this overheated post-George Floyd atmosphere.

In the past, Jews have played a constructive role in the struggle for civil rights—whether by marching with Dr. King or funding African-American education precisely because their efforts were aimed at raising up African-Americans, not abasing themselves at the altar of race.

That is why rather than jumping on the BLM bandwagon, those who claim to represent Jewish interests should be holding that movement to account for its damaging ideology, as well as its anti-Zionist connections and passivity about the growth of anti-Semitism among African-Americans.

Racism is real. But so is the danger of aligning with a movement whose goals are antithetical to family values, religion and civility, and all the values that are responsible
for the tremendous advances towards a better society that the civil-rights movement – supported by blacks and Jews in the past – achieved.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him
on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

(JNS).

Xi Jinping Begs Global CEOs to Stay in China

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Xi Jinping Begs Global CEOs to Stay in China
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping sent a letter to members of the Global CEO Council on Wednesday, presented by his state media as a triumphant boast of China’s economic strength.

To more skeptical eyes, the letter appeared as a plea for foreign companies to refrain from disengaging with China after the coronavirus pandemic, the oppression of the Uyghurs, the crackdown in Hong Kong, and China’s increasingly belligerent behavior on its land and maritime borders.

The “Global CEO Council” is a creation of the Chinese Communist Party that includes executives from 39 multinational corporations.

China’s state Xinhua news service reported that Xi’s letter included China’s pledge to “keep deepening reform and expanding opening-up, and provide a better business environment for the investment and development of Chinese and foreign enterprises.”

Xi strove to make China sound as attractive to foreign business as possible, deploying the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) shopworn canards about “win-win cooperation” and responsible global citizenship:

Xi wrote his missive in response to a letter from the Global CEO Council portrayed by Xinhua as swimming with praise for China’s fantastic handling of the coronavirus crisis, but the New York Post noted that the letter could also be read as a polite request for significant reform, and only 18 members of the council signed it.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) said Xi’s promises were made against the backdrop of China’s announcement that its economy grew by 3.2 percent in the second quarter of 2020, rebounding from its worst contraction of the modern era, a 6.8 percent decline in the previous quarter.

The SCMP noted that despite the perky tone of Xi’s letter to his multinational business partners, Beijing’s “charm offensive strategy targeting foreign businesses” has been faltering badly since the crackdown in Hong Kong.

“As politicians in Washington and Brussels harden their stances against Beijing, the Chinese government is trying to woo multinational companies with promises of business opportunities to avoid a total breakdown of relations and to maintain its role in global value chains,” the SCMP wrote, referring to growing displeasure with China in the United States and Europe, and the possibility of new sanctions from China.

One problem facing Xi’s effort to keep foreign business in China is that no one really believes China’s economic reports, any more than prudent observers should accept its claims about coronavirus cases and deaths. The question is always how much of China’s claims investors will choose to believe enough to place their bets on.

The Associated Press (AP) on Thursday noted that China’s second-quarter report showed growth instead of contraction, but it was still “the weakest positive figure since China started reporting quarterly growth in the early 1990s,” and while some analysts generally agreed that continuing improvement could be expected for the rest of the year, trouble with the U.S. and European powers still looms.

“A potential stumbling block is worsening relations with the United States, China’s biggest national export market, over disputes about trade, technology, human rights and Hong Kong,” the AP wrote.

Consumer spending remains weak in China, which is not only a sign that internal optimism about the economy is not as strong as the CCP would like, but could also make China’s markets a bit less attractive to foreign companies eager to make sales in China.

The CCP has a long history of using economic leverage to bully companies that do business in China, or robbing them outright once it can appropriate or duplicate their intellectual property, so the rewards have to be very good to make the risks appear reasonable. The Global CEO Council members who wrote to Xi seemed notably eager for the kind of reforms that would diminish the risk of doing business in China to make them commensurate with the diminished rewards.

Another problem facing Xi is that foreign CEOs have to shut down their consciences to do business in China. As the landmark Uyghurs for Sale report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) made clear in March, China’s famous supply of cheap labor is made cheaper with slave labor.

The Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang province are among the prisoners China forces to work in its factories, a practice accelerated considerably during the coronavirus outbreak, when the CCP decided it was too dangerous for Han Chinese to show up for work.

U.S. Attorney General Bob Barr noted the cognitive dissonance of giving China a pass during remarks at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum on Thursday.

“Hollywood’s actors producers and directors pride themselves on celebrating freedom and the human spirit, and every year at the Academy Awards Americans are lectured about how this country falls short of Hollywood’s ideals of social justice – but Hollywood now regularly censors its own movies to appease the Chinese Communist Party, the world’s most powerful violator of human rights.”

“This censorship infects not only the versions of movies that are released in China, but also many that are shown in the United States theaters to American audiences,” Barr said.

(Breitbart News).

Zera Shimshon – Mattos Masei

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Zera Shimshon – Mattos Masei

Nasty Nancy: Pelosi Endorses Anti-Semitic Omar For Re-Election To Minnesota Seat

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Nasty Nancy: Pelosi Endorses Anti-Semitic Omar For Re-Election To Minnesota Seat
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has endorsed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.)
for re-election in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, announced Omar’s campaign.

In touting endorsements from Pelosi and Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Melissa Hortman, Omar’s campaign said in a statement that the congresswoman “now has the support of the Democratic leaders of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Minnesota legislature, representing the support of the state and national Democratic party at the highest levels.”

Omar has perpetuated anti-Semitic tropes on Twitter and introduced a resolution in Congress that promotes boycotts of Israel, likening them to boycotts of Nazi Germany.

In February 2019, a month after being sworn in, Omar accused AIPAC of paying members of Congress to back Israel, saying it was “all about the Benjamins.”

The following month, she pointed fingers at her “Jewish colleagues” for attacking her and her colleague Rep. Tlaib (D-MI) for labeling their criticisms as anti-Israel because of the Muslim faith of the two congresswomen. Additionally, she slammed her critics regarding “the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

This led to the passing of a House resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred that did not, however, call out Omar by name.

In response to Omar’s dual-loyalty accusation, Pelosi said at the time, “I don’t think our colleague is anti-Semitic. I think she has a different experience in the use of words [and] doesn’t understand that some of them are fraught with meaning.”

Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks rebuked the endorsement.

“It’s sad and disappointing how little the leadership of the Democratic Party cares about standing up to anti-Semitism within their ranks,” he told JNS. “For Nancy Pelosi to endorse Ilhan Omar, who has trafficked in virulent anti-Semitic comments and has been one of the most vocal anti-Israel members of Congress, sends a message to the Jewish community that the Democratic Party just doesn’t care.”

Democratic Majority for Israel president and CEO Mark Mellman responded to Brooks, saying, “like Nancy Pelosi, we have condemned Congresswoman Omar’s anti-Semitic remarks. We appreciate her strong stand against them and her long and strong support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, as well as Jewish interests in America and around the world.”

{Matzav.com} / JNS

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar calls out DeSean, Stephen Jackson over anti-Semitic takes

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar calls out DeSean, Stephen Jackson over anti-Semitic takes

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an icon on and off the court.

An NBA legend, he is also a vocal social justice advocate, having stood alongside Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown and Bill Russell to fight for civil rights in the 1960s.

At 73 years old and decades after retirement, he’s still active. On Wednesday he criticized Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson and former NBA player Stephen Jackson over their anti-Semitic rhetoric in a column for The Hollywood Reporter.

‘Shocking lack of massive indignation’

He didn’t set his sights squarely on sports figures, leveling criticism for rapper Ice Cube, comedian Chelsea Handler and President Donald Trump while calling for “outrage over anti-Semitism in sports and Hollywood.”

“Recent incidents of anti-Semitic tweets and posts from sports and entertainment celebrities are a very troubling omen for the future of the Black Lives Matter movement, but so too is the shocking lack of massive indignation,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote.

How we got here

Abdul-Jabbar chastised DeSean Jackson for his recent social media post of a quote falsely attributed to Adolph Hitler that referred to Black people as “the real children of Israel” and cited Hitler’s alleged plan to incite World War III from his grave.

He rebuked Stephen Jackson for his support of DeSean, writing that his statements “undid whatever progress his previous advocacy may have achieved.”

Stephen Jackson was a prominent voice in the protests of the killing of George Floyd, who was a friend of his. He also defended DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic post long after DeSean had apologized for it.

Stephen Jackson doubled down after being criticized by peddling another anti-Semitic trope about the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family. He also invoked Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center designates as “deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT.”

“That is the kind of dehumanizing characterization of a people that causes the police abuses that killed his friend, George Floyd,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote.

Abdul-Jabbar: Ice Cube’s ‘truth’ is anti-Semitic

Abdul-Jabbar called out Handler for posting a video clip of Farrakhan on her Instagram page and Ice Cube for a string of tweets peddling conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic memes.

“His ‘truth’ was clearly anti-Semitic but … he believes his truth exists outside facts,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote.

To close, Abdul-Jabbar called for those advocating justice for one group to demand for justice for all.

“If we’re going to be outraged by injustice, let’s be outraged by injustice against anyone.”

(Yahoo News).

National Association of Police Organizations endorses Trump, after backing Biden as VP in ’08, ’12

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National Association of Police Organizations endorses Trump, after backing Biden as VP in ’08, ’12

‘We particularly value your directing the Attorney General to aggressively prosecute those who attack our officers,’ the union wrote.

The National Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) endorsed President Trump’s reelection Wednesday, praising his “steadfast and very public support” for law enforcement.

NAPO did not endorse a candidate in the 2016 election but endorsed former President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden in both the 2008 and 2012 elections.

NAPO President Michael McHale said Trump’s support is needed “during this time of unfair and inaccurate opprobrium being directed at our members by so many.”

“We particularly value your directing the Attorney General to aggressively prosecute those who attack our officers,” McHale wrote in a letter.

The police association, which represents more than 1,000 police associations and 241,000 officers, met with Trump on Monday.

Officers have faced routine disparaging in wake of nationwide racial injustice protests, and some have called out presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden for not condemning anti-police rhetoric.

While Biden’s campaign has staunchly opposed the idea of abolishing police departments, the candidate said that some funding should “absolutely” be redirected from the police.

In a Now This interview with activist Ady Barkan, the presumptive Democratic nominee said police forces don’t need surplus military equipment, saying this is what leads them to “become the enemy” in a community.

Biden campaign Rapid Response Director Andrew Bates said last month that the former vice president supports “the urgent need for reform,” which he said includes “funding for public schools, summer programs, and mental health and substance abuse treatment separate from funding for policing — so that officers can focus on the job of policing.”

The Biden campaign has pointed to the former vice president’s criminal justice plan, which proposes an additional $300 million for community policing. Bates said that the funding would “improve relationships between officers and residents” and would “provide the training that is needed to avert tragic, unjustifiable deaths.”

Trump, for his part, has billed himself as the president of “law and order.” During the NAPO meeting Trump on Monday planned to make his pitch to the National Association of Police Organizations as to why the group should endorse him.

“Our officers have been under vicious assault,” Trump said Monday during a roundtable with people whose lives have been positively impacted by law enforcement. “Reckless politicians have defamed our heroes as the enemy…These radical politicians want to defund and abolish the police.”

Trump added: “My administration is pro-safety, pro-police and anti-crime.”

Despite Biden’s efforts to align with both the protestors and the police, it appears that some police unions are rethinking their backing of him amid concerns that he’s embraced “anti-police rhetoric.”

“Joe Biden was a very strong supporter of theirs years ago, and he’s been kidnapped now by the anti-police rhetoric,” Paul Digiacomo, the president of the Detective Endowment Association, told Fox Business. “There’s a big question amongst our members if Joe Biden is going to stand up and support the police.”

(Fox News).

 

ZOA Establishes Hotline to Aid Journalists Suffering Antisemitism/Israel Bias at NY Times and Elsewhere

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ZOA Establishes Hotline to Aid Journalists Suffering Antisemitism/Israel Bias at NY Times and Elsewhere
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein and Chair Mark Levenson, Esq. have released the following statement:

In light of the shocking resignation by NY Times journalist Bari Weiss, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has established a hotline for journalists at the NY Times or any other media outlet to call to report any antisemitism, anti-Israel bigotry, bullying, or harassment they are experiencing.

ZOA condemns the hostile antisemitic work environment now on full and public display at The New York Times. Bari Weiss’s decision to resign from her position as a writer and editor at the Times highlights the problems of journalists who call out antisemitism on the right and the left, and stand up for Israel.

No journalist should pay a price for expressing these views. In her resignation letter, Weiss revealed that her Times colleagues called her “a Nazi and a racist.” They criticized her for “writing about the Jews again.”

To all journalists: We are with you and we are here to help you. ZOA has a long and proud record of effectively fighting antisemitism and standing up for the rights of Jews and those that support Israel. We do it in the courts, in Congress, in the media, in schools, and on college campuses. Rest assured, ZOA will stand up for you, too.

If you have been bullied, harassed, or even threatened for expressing support for Jews or Israel, please contact us. We will guide you and stand up for your right to express those views – and the public’s right to hear them.

Contact us at (212) 481-1500 or info@zoa.org. Together we will fight this culture of intolerance and hostility and bias and bigotry against Jews and the Jewish State at the NY Times and other media outlets.

(Vosizneias).

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