Brooklyn College Must Stand Firm Against Terror Supporters

By: Eli Verschleiser

What is it about Brooklyn College that makes it such a hotbed of anti-Zionism and flashpoint in the political war against Israel?

This “middle-class Ivy League” school in Midwood, where my parents and wife Dr. Shani Verschleiser attended, is part of the City University of New York system and has high populations of Jews and Muslims, but so do other schools. We don’t seem to hear nearly as much about the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine and other groups devoted to the destruction of Israel as we know it at big city public or private colleges as much as we do at Brooklyn. In the New York area, it particularly stands out.

Per the conservative Los Angeles-based David Horowitz Freedom Center, which tracks campus anti-Israel activity, Brooklyn College is one of the top 10 schools in the nation for anti-Israel activity, alongside such peers as San Diego State, University of California at Irvine, Vassar College and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

According to the center’s website, stopthejewhatredoncampus.org, Brooklyn College “is home to one of the most active and extreme SJP chapters in the nation. Brooklyn College SJP has posted articles and videos online defending terrorism including an advertisement titled “The Third Intifada” on its Facebook page.” Antics have included a “die-in” to dramatize Palestinian victims, trampling on Israeli flags and mock-up military checkpoints to illustrated West Bank life for Arabs.

The campus is a battleground for the insidious Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. According to Amcha Initiative, another group that rose from outrage over the demonization of Israel on our college campuses, last year, more than 300 incidents of anti-Semitism occurred at 109 schools in 28 states.

SJP and other anti-Zionist student groups are a major source of anti-Semitic rhetoric and behavior at many schools.” The Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) counted 649 anti-Israel events at colleges in the U.S.

This shows how we are losing the battle of social media which allows today's youth to be educated with lies and deception. Israel and Jewish organizations are doing a lot to provide Jewish students with balanced information, including free Birthright Israel trips. They must continue their efforts and do more to show Israel’s hard work to make peace, its contributions to the world and the stubbornness of the Palestinians in resisting productive talks.

Several high-profile Israel-bashing events, some coordinated with faculty, have been held at the campus. And four Jewish students recently fought a long battle for justice after they were inexplicably thrown out of a SJP event in February 2013, simply for holding pro-Israel fact sheets they had yet to distribute. It took just over a year and the assistance of the The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law before President Karen Gould apologized to the students, acknowledging that a college official violated the students’ civil rights by ejecting them. The college then added insult to injury by incorrectly telling the press the students had been disruptive to defend his actions.

But things haven’t improved much in the interim. In February of this year, a group of rowdy protestors stormed into a Faculty Council meeting and started chanting anti-Zionist nonsense at the professors. The meeting had to be adjourned, and The Jewish Week reported that some felt threatened by the incident.

This is not to say that students shouldn’t be free to voice criticism of Israel under their First Amendment rights. No country is perfect, and people are entitled to opinions even if they are misinformed or biased.

But increasingly anti-Zionist protestors all over North America have tried to silence and intimidate the other side, disrupting events, shouting down speakers, targeting students in their dorms with “eviction notices” and striving to make it difficult to express pride in the Jewish state (which, last time I checked, was also protected by the Constitution.)

A recent survey by the Cohen Center at Brandeis University found one quarter of North American Jewish students "describe hostility toward Israel on campus by their peers as a 'fairly' or 'very big' problem".

The Zionist Organization of America and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights have been advising Jewish students about their rights and how to protect them from infringement, whether it’s from peers or misguided or overzealous college administrators, faculty or security guards.

This atmosphere of bias and intimidation is especially poignant at a time when colleges are increasingly going on about trigger warnings, safe spaces and open bathrooms to ensure that no one’s feelings are hurt, and that counseling is available if they are.

Aren’t Israel supporters entitled to the same protection and concern?

There may be no easy answer as to why Brooklyn College has become such a battleground. Maybe the situation just builds on itself.

Fortunately, the college has a top-notch Hillel organization with ample facilities just off campus for pro-Israel students to safely and comfortably hold their events. There is no shortage of pro-Israel organizations and activities run by proud and tough Jews, including a sizable share of Israelis, who aren’t going anywhere and aren’t about to hide their blue and white flags for anyone.

The Hillel director, Nadya Drucker, her staff and board work closely with the administration to share concerns. Hopefully the new president, Michelle J. Anderson, understands the need for open dialogue and exchange of ideas, without intimidation, between students.

But bad decisions like the one in 2013, taking sides against the Israel supporters at an event, can have a lasting negative impact, suggesting to SJP and others that they have free reign and friends in high places.

In keeping with its role as an academic haven for thousands of Jewish students and other Israel supporters, the administration must disabuse them of this notion. Just as it’s crucial to stand firm against terrorists, so must we do the same with their supporters.

The Crown Heights Riots, 25 Years Later

By: Al Sharpton - Wiki Commons

By: Eli Verschleiser

There is no shortage of reminders these days about how easily peace can turn into violence. Protests turn into disturbances very easily — all too often resulting in senseless crime directed against people who have no connection to the grievance that sparked the unrest.

The Crown Heights riots of 1991 were a different, and fortunately still singular, kind of event in America. They constituted the first time, perhaps since the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915 Georgia, that a rampant violent mob targeted Jews. Hopefully it will be the last.

Looking back, it’s hard to understand how the rumor that a Jewish ambulance squad refused to treat a dying black child spread so quickly, and for so long, without being effectively dispelled. In reality, it was the police who told the Hatzolah ambulance crew, who wanted to save the child’s life, to leave the scene for their own safety.

A “perfect storm” of tragedy mixed with dysfunction followed. There was a lack of sufficient official, accurate information channeled through community leaders when it was needed most. And to top that off, there was incredibly weak leadership at the police department and in City Hall.

Into this nest of chaos (as police, for whatever reason, failed to forcefully quell the riots with mass arrests) walked Yankel Rosenbaum. One man was later convicted of inciting the mob with “get the Jew;” and the mob did just that. And many others went free who were just as guilty.

The vacuum of competence seemed to follow Rosenbaum from the unprotected streets to Kings County Hospital, where an untreated stab wound led to his death.

The next day, things would go from bad to worse. The Reverend Al Sharpton, then an angry preacher, didn’t change the narrative when he arrived in Crown Heights. He viewed this as another case of racism, almost as if the Hassidic driver had targeted the black child. The streets echoed with chants of “No justice, no peace,” even though there was already no peace, and there had been no chance to properly analyze the accident.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of these events in 2011, Rev. Sharpton admirably reflected on his actions and noted in a Daily News op-ed that he should have chosen his words at the time more carefully, especially at the funeral of the deceased child, Gavin Cato.

“With the wisdom of hindsight, let’s be clear,” he wrote. “Our language and tone sometimes exacerbated tensions and played to the extremists rather than raising the issue of the value of this young man whom we were so concerned about.” He added that he also should have expressed concern about the value of Yankel Rosenbaum’s life and that “there was no justification or excuse for violence.”

But this was not enough, according to Rosenbaum’s brother, Norman, who noted that the preacher has yet to demand justice for the 28 people who took part in the mob that attacked Yankel. Few if any people were ever charged with lesser counts of vandalizing property and terrorizing Crown Heights Jews in their homes.

Looking back on the events, so many people still try to present an alternative version of events: blacks and Jews scuffling with each other over neighborhood issues, as the New York Times tried to cast it, or the legitimate indignation of the rioters spilling over into unfortunate violence because of the August heat (and unemployment in the black community).

But the truth, as Norman Rosenbaum put it, was that the riots at their core were a result of people, mostly agitators from outside Crown Heights, exploiting a tragedy to vent their resentment of Jews in general and the Crown Heights Hassidim in particular — and to inflict harm on innocent people.

If we are to learn any lesson at all, it is how leaders such as Sharpton and Mayor David Dinkins failed to act quickly and unambiguously to stop the violence.

Investigators have never disproven what Mayor Dinkins has long maintained: That he never ordered the police to let the rioters vent. But that doesn’t matter. As his successor, Rudy Giuliani, showed, the city’s chief executive gets the credit when things are running well because he appoints the leaders, and they answer to him.

I believe that a similar incident would not happen in 2016. Today, we’re able to Tweet and email accurate information to catch up to falsehoods and quickly organize leaders to restore calm; furthermore, with police alertness perpetually high out of terrorism concerns, it’s likely a strong show of force would stop such an outbreak.

Finally, New Yorkers have learned to vote smarter. Hopefully when they look at the next election for City Hall, they’ll factor in the important question of, when there’s a perfect storm, who will be holding the umbrella?

Originally Published: The Algemeiner

If They Gave Medals for Olympic Snubs

By: Eli Verschleiser

It’s a timeless image. A young Israeli literally extending his hand to Islam, only to be rebuffed.

The image was seen around the world, and with the help of Israel supporters, will likely be seen for years to come. Because the snub by Islam El Shehaby at the Rio Olympics of Or Sasson, the Israeli athlete who bested him in judo wasn’t just the bad sportsmanship of a sore loser.

Egypt’s Islam Elshehaby (blue) refuses to shake hands after
 defeat by Israel’s Or Sasson in their men’s +100kg judo 
contest match of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de 
Janeiro  on August 12, 2016. (AFP/Toshifumi Kitamura)

To many, it was emblematic of the attitudes, petty and baseless in nature but massively consequential, that Israel faces as it struggles to coexist with its Arab neighbors in a manner that approaches mutual respect.

The look on his face might have suggested scorn of his rival, but let’s face it, El Shehaby may well have been afraid to treat the Israeli like a peer. That handshake would also have become a viral image, but one of hopefulness and optimism. Can’t have that. His life might very well have been endangered in a world in which Charlie Hebdo staff were gunned down because of a cartoon.

According to an account on social media -- widely picked up by pro-Israel blogs -- from Hindel Swerdlov, who sat next to Sasson and his coach, Oren Smagda on their return flight to Israel, Smagda saw the snub coming even before the match began.

The coach reportedly recalled that “all the Egyptian mates and coaches were pounding their chests and saying alla hu akhbar!” More disturbingly, Smagda said Sasson received Facebook messages threatening his life if he touched the Egyptian. But you don’t get very far threatening an Israeli, particularly not one who excels at judo.

The International Olympic Committee formally reprimanded El Shehaby, saying his conduct was “contrary to the rules of fair play and against the spirit of friendship embodied in Olympic values,” according to the Associated Press.

But if they gave out medals for hatred of Israel, El Shehaby would be just a contender, not necessarily a champion (just like in his judo career).

It was widely reported that on the opening night the Lebanese delegation of athletes tried to keep Israeli peers off their bus, with one of them actually physically blocking the door. For security reasons, I was surprised the Israeli delegation didn’t have its own bus from the get-go. But a separate bus was found to appease the misbehavers. Let’s give these folks a bronze medal for hate.

Perhaps the silver medal should go to the Saudi judoka, Joud Fahmy, who forfeited her first round match rather than face the possibility of advancing to the second round – in which she might have to face Israeli Gili Cohen. Joud earns her medal for strategic snobbery, rather than just spontaneous nastiness.

El Shehaby deserves the gold not just because his snub was so public, but because it’s so senseless. Okay, Israel did invade Lebanon, twice, so you could understand if not justify the grudge. And Israel and Saudi Arabia have no formal ties (even if they have some mutual strategic interests these days in facing Islamic State and the eventual nuclear Iran.)

But Israel and Egypt have a formal peace treaty that has endured for 36 years, and the two countries work closely together on security at the Gaza and Sinai borders. El Shehaby is too young to have faced Israel on the battlefield, but perhaps his relatives have. If so, he should remind himself who attacked whom in 1967 and 1973. Also, Egypt lost, but still got its land back, an extremely rare historical occurrence. You can be a sore loser at judo, but why be a sore winner in politics?

The fact that the match between Israel and Egypt took place at all was supposed to be a sign of progress and in the true spirit of the Olympics. The dream, after all, is for rival countries to face each other in non-violent competition, for pride and bragging rights without hostility. For his part, Sasson went home with a bronze medal, but also with a much more valuable prize of being able to hold his head high as a sportsman and a credit to his country.

I will not be the first commentator to point out the global symbolism of the snub. Brett Stephens of the Wall Street Journal framed it as part of the deep, pervasive anti-Semitism in Arab countries that practically have no Jews, who use them to scapegoat.

He correctly noted that Arab hatred of and violence against Jews and Zionist pioneers long predates the state of Israel, and by far precedes the captured of the West Bank and Gaza in the Six-Day War. He notes that it persists even as Israel increases its regional cooperation with its neighbors and tries to get back to the negotiating table with an obstinate Palestinian Authority led by the naysayer Mahmoud Abbas.

Of course, those talks can tend to have the opposite effect. Waves of terror attacks followed the commencement of the Oslo peace accords signed by Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993.

But even Arafat, an infamous terrorist leader if ever there was one, was willing to shake the hand of an Israeli.

Originally Posted: The American Thinker

Let’s Talk Responsibly About Suicide.

By: Eli Verschleiser

I have written before about the tendency in some circles to take a tragic event or series of events and try to show a trend that reflects poorly on religious Jews. There has been a wave of people going public in recent years with memoirs about their rebellion against religious life and the unfortunate misery they endured while forced to adhere to a lifestyle they did not value.

And so, the Jewish and secular media are already on the lookout for continuation or elevation of the concept that the more strictly Orthodox a Jew grows up, the more likely he or she is to be dysfunctional and unhappy, unless they are fortunate enough to escape and write a bestseller about it. 

Do not misunderstand me. As the President of Our Place, a non-profit organization that provides support, shelter, and counseling for our troubled youth, I will not for a moment dismiss the urgent need for such people to find their comfort level and be true to who they are at heart. 

It has been one of my life’s missions to help individuals on that path find peace. I have seen far too many tragic outcomes when drugs and conflict take hold and hope is extinguished, along with a young life that held enormous value and promise.

But perspective is important, and perspective is very elusive when it comes to the media. One life, one single precious life that is snuffed out because suicide seemed the only remedy is 1,000 times too high a price to pay. And it is not one life, it is many.

But in recent months, following a few high profile suicides, numbers have been thrown around that strain credibility and present a far more frightening picture than what I and others know actually exists.

I do not believe that 70+ religious Jews have committed suicide since Rosh Hashana, as some have recently asserted in the media. This fits into the narrative of an increasingly dysfunctional community that some would like to see, but it is at odds with the evidence. I have pressed one individual who was linked to that figure in a media report, and he assured me it did not come from him.

What’s at stake here is not just pride and accuracy and our indignation at media mistreatment.

Human lives are at stake because of this irresponsible talk. Because suicide is a disease. And it’s contagious.

Just as unstable people sometimes copycat crimes they see on TV, so can the troubled duplicate suicide when they see the level of attention it draws in the aftermath. So if one suicide can beget another, dozens of fabricated suicides can create actual ones.

Perhaps some of those using this 70+ figure is including drug overdoses in their total. In many cases, perhaps most, such deaths are unintentional, a result of unexpectedly potent drugs or inexperience with dosages. In many cases I have seen such people, while surely troubled enough to be drawn to drugs, had no intention to end their lives.

Drug abuse can be cured, the toll of an overdose reversed. But suicide is irrevocable.

The Centers for Disease Control have recognized copycat suicides as a dangerous phenomenon as far back as 1989, when they held a workshop to address the issue of “media-related suicide contagion."

Experts agree that reporting of overdose can be beneficial to the public if it helps publicize the availability of programs such as hotlines, prevention and support groups, such as Our Place or The Living Room. But it can be detrimental and promote copycats if the coverage focuses on the method of suicide, the outpouring of love for the deceased at the funeral or memorial service and all the positive attributes of the deceased without also mentioning that the person was deeply troubled.

The public attachment of suicide to the idea of “escaping” a religious community is also highly dangerous, especially if it is depicted as a larger phenomenon than it actually is, with a percentage that is higher than suicide rates in the general population, which according to the American Society for Suicide Prevention is 12.93 per every 100,000 people. With about 600,000 Orthodox Jews in the New York Tri-State area, 70+ suicides would amount to more than 15 people per 100,000.

I would never ask the professional media to stifle actual news of a tragedy, nor should anyone expect this. What I would ask for is more of the kind of skepticism we see when politicians or corporate leaders make public statements that can often be ad hoc inflated or self serving.

Let’s have a smart dialogue about suicide that leaves behind hurtful and dangerous narratives and focuses where it counts most – extending a compassionate hand to those who need one.

Originally Published: 5 Towns Jewish Times

No ‘Understanding’ For Cop Killers

By: Eli Verschleiser

On the morning of July 7, Sgt. Michael Smith of the Dallas Police Department kissed his 9-year-old daughter Caroline goodbye as he headed off to his shift, and a terrible thought struck him.

“What if this is the last time you ever kiss me or hug me?” he asked, according to Caroline’s later account to CBS News. It was the result of some ominous intuition because, as we know all too well, it was indeed the last time. Michael and 13 other cops were gunned down on the streets of Dallas that day while keeping order and managing traffic at a protest rally. Michael was one of five who would never come home from the ambush.

We would barely have time to process the horror when it happened again: Three more would die just 10 days later in Baton Rogue, La. at the hands of another crazed gunman, with three more injured. Both shootings were ostensibly tied to anger over recent police killings of unarmed black men that are under investigation.

President Obama rightly declared that the murders were “cowardly and reprehensible”, while then declaring that there is “no justification” for the killing of cops. “They right no wrongs. They advance no causes.”

Why even present the other side of an argument that should not exist in the first place? Who believes this was justified or part of a cause? That there is some shred of logic and purpose to a war on police?

Few people, as far as public statements. But you could hear many interviewed in the streets, and many commentators walking a rhetorical tightrope, with words to the effect of “I don’t support the shootings” – wait for it – “But…”

In a July 19 USA Today column, Tavis Smiley urges us to “listen to the Baton Rouge killer.” He writes “How many more disaffected black men have to self-radicalize before we take their claims seriously? … We can call them lone wolves, deranged, cowardly and reprehensible until we’re blue in the face. But you know what I call them and many others in their generation? Discontented. Demonized. Disavowed.”

In doing so, he ascribes some blame for the violence to society, rather than hold the killers entirely liable for their actions.

Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher went even further, saying that he does not condone the shootings, “but I do understand it … How many videos can you see? How many years can go by when this is going on when black people are brutally assaulted? … I’m surprised somebody did not fire back sooner.”

It is gracious of Mr. Maher not to support the wanton murder of a human being simply by virtue of his or her occupation and uniform. It would be difficult, after all, to rationalize that this is any better than accepting the murder of a person based on race, religion, national origin or some other trait.

But shooting “back” means returning fire while under fire. Hours later, in cold blood, in another city, with uninvolved people is not revenge or retaliation or rebellion.

It is not a phase in a cycle of violence, no more than killing office workers in San Bernardino or night club patrons in Orlando or joggers in the Boston marathon is “retaliation” for any government-sponsored violence by troops or jet planes or drone strikes or American policy in another part of the world. It’s just murder. Period.

I understand the anger caused by incidents of questionable or blatantly unacceptable conduct by police, and the tendency of officers in such cases to get off scot free. Successful prosecutions seem to be rare, leading to a heated debate.

But if the shooter in Dallas (I will not mention the killers’ names as they deserve no publicity) was so concerned about the misdeeds of cops in St. Paul, Minn., and Baton Rouge, La., why did he attack cops in Dallas who were protecting the rights of protesters?

And why did the shooter in Baton Rogue target a black cop, Montrell Jackson? None of the 19 cops involved had any connection to the incidents that touched off the protests.

Rational people around the world address grievances through peaceful activism, sometimes civil disobedience, and this has moved governments to action, toppled walls and dictators and forced the passage of just laws. Indiscriminate assassination and ambush cannot lead to anything constructive.

The killers of these cops each had a history of dysfunction and erratic behavior that predates the incidents in Louisiana and Minnesota. If society is at all to blame, it is for the notoriety we give mass shooters in the media — and sometimes excessive analysis of their motives — coupled with ridiculously easy access to guns. Their acts were nothing more than wanton murder by unstable people seeking to link their homicidal urges to a cause in order to be celebrated as a hero.

Let’s not elevate them by using their crimes and the words “justifiable” in the same sentence.

Originally Published: The Huffington Post

‘Stargate’ Does Not Make Trump An Anti-Semite

By: Eli Verschleiser

The trouble with politics in the social media age is that the need to take fullest advantage of this massive, free platform for connecting and promoting ideas becomes so powerful that it often obscures good common sense. A candidate who is not Donald Trump, with his temperament and spontaneity, would have been undone by this a long time ago. I won’t list all of his controversial tweets here, but suffice it to say he’s an equal opportunity and bipartisan offender with remarks about Hillary Clinton, his Republican opponents, climate change, immigrants, fellow celebrities and more. Even when he tries to say something positive, as in the case of his Cinco de Mayo message featuring a taco bowl, he gets hammered. But Trump seems to eat bad publicity for breakfast, a larger than life figure who somehow defies convention by taking hits from the media and numerous other public critics and emerging politically stronger.

That will likely be the case following the recent dust-up, in which an anti-Hillary meme, reportedly tied to a neo-Nazi message board, found its way into the Donald’s Twitter feed. It features, as you have undoubtedly heard, a Magen David star with the words “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever,” superimposed over a picture of cash.

Yes, the tweet is may be offensive, and yes it may have been intended as a subliminal message that the Democratic nominee, former New York senator and former secretary of state is a tool of Jewish money as the source of her corruption. It may have been bad judgment to use it rather than a campaign generated attack on Hillary, but the ironically low-budget campaign seems to be strapped for talent these days.

Trump at first deleted the Tweet, replacing it with a doctored starless image, but later doubled down and said the original could easily have been a sheriff’s star rather than a religious symbol. And then silly season really began, when the campaign showed a Disney book with a similar star on the cover. If they’re not anti-Semitic, he argued, neither am I.

As having done business with the Donald, I am certain he is not even close to being anti-Semitic. There were more Jewish religious individuals around his office than in a local synagogue. 

L-R Donald Trump & Eli Verschleiser (2005)

Throughout his meteoric rise in this election cycle Trump has evoked comparisons to Hitler. Google their names and you’ll find pages of discussion on this topic, with most saying the comparison is egregious (I agree), even if his tactics may evoke elements of Third Reich populism. So it was only a matter of time before he was accused of Antisemitism.

The shoe does not fit. It’s not just that Trump has a Jewish son-in-law and a daughter who converted, and Jewish members of his campaign.The guy responsible for the tweet, he declared, has a Jewish wife

Trump has built his success in a city in which it’s pretty difficult to navigate the business landscape without dealing with Jewish peers, and in all the decades he’s been on the real estate scene none has ever publicly accused him of prejudice. I recall an episode of “The Apprentice,” Trump’s signature NBC reality show, in which he defended the right of an Orthodox Jewish contestant to observe a Jewish holiday rather than participate in a scheduled group project. He counseled the other contestants to accept that this was a reality of the business world and they should learn to adapt.

Many of Trump’s critics in this matter are sincere, understandably offended by the tweet and his ambiguity about its message that is so clear to others. The Anti-Defamation League’s national director, Jonathan Greenblatt scoffed at the Disney comparison. “Connecting the Star of David to money and politicians is intended to invoke anti-Semitic stereotypes,” he told Buzzfeed News.

“I wish he would bring the same firmness to his rejection of anti-Semites and racists as he brings to members of the media and other candidates.”

Fair. But let’s accept that some of the people co-opting the right to be indignant over this matter are motivated by politics. They see that, given Hillary Clinton’s complicated relationship with Israel in her various public roles and the significant questions about her trustworthiness, the Jewish vote in large part could go either way in this election, straining the traditional Democratic loyalty.

Those critics, angered and worried about his position on Muslims and immigration would like to see Jews drawn into the fray. Not just the liberal Jews who have already steadily denounced him, but the mainstream, middle of the road leaders in swing state communities.

Donald Trump’s campaign made a mistake sending that Tweet, and I hope he makes up for it in the final stretch of the election by being more careful and denouncing bigotry in all its forms, including the people supporting him who practice it. But there are more than enough real anti-Semites and real would-be Hitlers out there. Trying to label Trump as one of them for political reasons based on one Tweet also takes our national discourse in a bad direction.

After this dies down, maybe we can actually talk about some of the serious issues facing the country, and what the candidates plan to do about them.

Originally Published: The Times of Israel

Poverty, Housing and The Blame Game

By: Eli Verschleiser

It's hard to imagine a public debate about why so many homeless people are still homeless and whether they chose their own predicament. Or going into a low-income neighborhood in New York City or the deep south and asking the residents if they are trying hard enough to improve their circumstance and join the middle class.

But when it comes to one group, Chasidic Jews, it's not unusual to speculate that they have in large part made their own beds, chosen yeshiva study over work, had too many kids or taken low-paying jobs just to qualify for benefits for the poor.

A recent New York Daily News article, in conjunction with radio station WNYC took a hard look at the success of Jews in Williamsburg in qualifying for Section 8 taxpayer-funded housing benefits. The article only implies wrongdoing, but browse through some of the resulting comments on social media and you'll see a strong current of hate.

"They're gaming the system and committing fraud," says one poster on the web site Gothamist. "Villainous scum," says another.

It's not necessarily anti-Semitism. Plenty of Jews are quick to condemn their Chasidic brothers as purposeful freeloaders who embarrass them. What they have in common is the freedom to make assumptions and embrace a double standard: it's OK for some people to be poor, but not others.

"As a matter of public policy welfare benefits should be limited to those poor through no fault of their own," says another online commenter.

So, how would this work? The government would set up a panel to essentially issue poor permits, to determine through some unimaginable litmus test who is choosing to be poor and who simply has lousy luck? Would this be determined solely by the number of children, or by other education and geography choices. And should we start limiting children, like China?

Let me be clear: Anyone who falsely qualifies for a government program by deception such as concealing income should be prosecuted, and I am certainly not disputing there are likely those in every community guilty of this crime. I am also not advocating that anyone has a moral right to receive benefits when self-sufficiency is available.

But I also don't want to understate the scourge of poverty in communities not far removed from the immigration generation, including some recent immigrants, who like many others face cultural assimilation issues, especially in light of years of persecution abroad.

Yeshivas do indeed need to do more to prepare children not just for religious life but with secular education that paves the way for job skills. There is evidence that some are not doing this, and they should be compelled to do so.

However, as millions of Americans can attest, having job skills and a desire to work doesn't necessarily create the opportunity for a high-paying job. Densely populated communities can't always sustain themselves independently, especially when population growth exceeds economic growth.

Add to that the fact that cultural change takes time. Like their counterparts elsewhere, more Chasidic women surely work today compared to 20 years ago. A recent survey by the group B'Hadrei Haredim found that 53 percent work full-time. But there are still barriers and logistics to come that do not happen overnight.

Some would coldly suggest that a faith community, still recovering from the devastation of the Holocaust have fewer or no children until they rise up the economic ladder. But no other community is asked to do this.

It's the American way to give the needy a leg up until they can get better established and contribute enough to society to, in turn, help others. It's simply hatred toward your neighbor to assume everyone in a particular community is poor by choice and milking the government with no effort to improve themselves.

If the broader Jewish community in the New York area excels at anything, it's establishing strong community organizations that may assist in the process for applicants who might otherwise have no place to turn. This is nothing to be ashamed of. If they are more successful than their counterparts, they should, and often do, offer their expertise to help their neighbors obtain the same benefits.

As WNYC reports, the ability to organize and gain political support has enabled the Satmar Chasidim to stay in one of the hottest real estate markets near city through a combination of political influence and community members providing both supply and demand. Political power and high voter turnout is nothing to be ashamed of -- it should be encouraged -- and community members who own property renting to those who receive section 8 vouchers, rather than making excuses and turning them away is also commendable.

What's the alternative? Allowing rents to rise, hipsters and the wealthy to take over the neighborhood and make the area increasingly less accessible to lower income renters?

To begin to ease our national debt, the US will face pressure to clamp down on spending programs across the board, and that means more closely scrutinizing applications and the efficacy of programs across the board. It is my strong hope we don't do that by stigmatizing members of faith groups and using guilt by association to question worthiness.

Originally Published on The Jewish World Review

Governor Cuomo and Legislature Must Show Leadership On Abuse

By: Eli Verschleiser

I have spent much of my life fighting for the protection of kids, teenagers, and the underdog. All too often I encounter young people whose lives were ruined by the scourge of sexual abuse which harms their self-esteem and ability to thrive and function as adults. It’s our responsibility to take every measure possible to hold abusers accountable and send a strong message to institutions that fail to stop abuse.

Legislation in the State Assembly, known as the Markey bill, would eliminate New York’s civil statute of limitations (currently absurdly capped at age 23) for crimes involving child sexual abuse going forward and create a one-year window for victims to file claims regardless of the elapsed time. The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Margaret Markey of Queens, has been proposed ten times previously, and now seemingly has enough supporters to pass the lower house. It could pick up even more support for passage with some strong advocacy from the state’s chief executive.

State Senators recently proposed a similar bill that would additionally remove a current requirement that those seeking to sue a public institution, such as a school, file a claim within 90 days. This would make public and private institutions equally accountable.

I discussed the topic and the Markey bill with the Governor over two years ago. He was very versed in the bill and was clearly in agreement to numerous parts of the bill conceptually.

But until recently Gov. Andrew Cuomo was playing his cards close to the vest on this, making vague public statements about protecting victims without commenting on the Markey bill.

After sustained pressure from abuse survivors and their substantial community of supporters, the governor finally agreed to support some reforms mentioned in the two bills.

“This is an incredibly important issue and we are serious about addressing the situation,” a Cuomo spokesman told The New York Daily News. “We have been discussing options with the Legislature …”

The governor is showing that he gets that it often takes abuse victims years, with the help of supporters and therapists to come to terms with the grievousness of their trauma. In many cases, they sadly tend to place their own welfare second to that of the abuser.

It remains to be seen if he will back a one-year window for those already stuck behind the statute of limitations for seeking redress for long-ago abuse.

Perhaps it’s the governor’s style to avoid too much comment on a bill that has not yet reached his desk, and still must be hammered out between legislators in both houses. But this is no ordinary bill. Lives are literally at stake. I have seen too many people fatally destroy their lives because of abuse, and so have all the activists who have pushed for this bill.

New York has been an activist state in many areas, such as marriage equality and gun control, and must not take a back seat on this issue. Some powerful interests oppose the bill because they fear a torrent of lawsuits that could pose an existential threat. But I am more worried about the existential threat to victims, and so should political leaders.

The Markey bill would put institutions on notice that looking the other way and failing to take strong, necessary action when there are signs of abuse by an employee or representative is dangerous. It would also send a strong compassionate message to victims that we as a society want them to come forward for healing and justice and that we will have their backs when they do so.

Hopefully the message will also trickle down to would-be abusers that they can’t take advantage of children and perpetrate their depraved acts and expect to get away with it, and that they should get help for their compulsions. A pedophile who gets away with his or her first crime is likely to continue with over 100 more victims, making it crucial that they be stopped at the earliest juncture.

Should we be concerned that institutions could face an insurmountable cascade of lawsuits, some of them involving former, perhaps temporary employees, incurring legal expenses that impede their ability to function? Yes, but the burden of proof on the accuser remains high. Experienced investigators and prosecutors know how to detect false claims, which are very rare in the first place given the stigma attached to sexual abuse.

I hope we can be confident that our system of laws and courts can weed out false claims and uphold the rights of victims to come forward and seek justice, no matter how long it has taken them to muster the support and courage.

There are only a few session days left before the June 16 end of the legislative session. Too much is at stake to wait until the next session.

If  Governor Cuomo and other members of the Legislature have concerns about this matter let him air them in the marketplace of ideas and seek changes in the final version of the bill.

But sitting on his hands and avoiding the subject isn’t an option for a leader. His words in support of this bill must translate into action, now.

Originally Published on: The Huffington Post

Burning Question: Is a Torah Less Holy Than a Koran?

By: Eli Verschleiser

If you had to list the reasons why Israel should exist as a haven for the Jewish people, freedom from the burning of holy Torah scrolls would have to rank pretty high on the list.

This act of hate is closely associated with the Holocaust, when the psychotic Nazis would relish the destruction of the Jews’ book of inspiration and knowledge. On occasion, we’ve seen it happen elsewhere, such as in New York shuls desecrated by hateful vandals or in modern-day Europe at the hands of neo-Nazis.

Torah scrolls under Israeli control should theoretically be safe. But last month vandals believed to be Palestinian entered a synagogue in the Jewish community of Karmei Tsur, piled the Torah scrolls together and set them afire. If you missed the international condemnation of that vengeful act of hate, it’s not because you weren’t paying attention. It was nonexistent.

Media coverage wasn’t very heavy, either. From what I can find there was only an AP dispatch and some Jewish media coverage. The Times covered Jewish attacks in the area on Arabs, but didn’t notice the burning Torahs.

Yes, I know. In the eyes of most of the world Jews don’t belong in the territory they call the west bank (and in the eyes of some, anywhere in the Middle East), and so, whatever happens to them, they had it coming. Let them count their blessings that no person was hurt in this particular incident (even as countless stabbings and other murders terrorize Jews in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel.)

It would be encouraging to hear statements along the lines of, regardless of how you feel about the politics of Israel’s control of territory, violent attacks and desecration of holy places are somewhat polarizing and must be stopped and condemned in the highest levels of the Palestinian government.

Israeli leaders never seem to have a problem condemning the bad behavior of right-wing Jews. On January 31, a group defaced some property, including a mosque in the village of Hawara. It was removed by Israeli authorities. Two weeks earlier, when vandals set fire to a mosque in Der Istya an IDF spokesman called it “deplorable on every level.”

And yet we’ve heard little on the Torah burning aside from the outrage of the Anti-Defamation League and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow that he find the perpetrators. “I expect the international community to condemn the desecration of a synagogue, an act that is the result of incessant Palestinian incitement,” Netanyahu wrote in a Facebook post.

Compare the silence to President Barack Obama’s denunciation in April, 2011 when a U.S. pastor burned the Koran. “The destruction of any holy text including the Koran is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” the president said then, according to CNN. He called the display by the Dove World Outreach Center an event that could help al Qaeda recruitment.

Tony Blair, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom declared that the act of burning the Koran is “disrespectful, wrong and will be widely condemned by people of all faiths and none.”

And the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, notoriously nonchalant about attacks on Jews said burning the Koran “contradict[s] the efforts of the United Nations and others to promote tolerance, intercultural understanding and mutual respect between cultures and religions.”

“Abhorrent and simply wrong,” said Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Is not the desecration of Torahs an equally intolerant and bigoted act, abhorrent, antithetical to tolerance with the potential to inspire more extremist violence? It doesn’t seem to take much at all to do that.

It’s important for world leaders to take a more consistent position when it comes to public statements on the Mideast. Just because Israel is the more powerful side of the dispute with the Palestinians does not mean it is always wrong and that hateful acts, contrary to Ban Ki-Moon’s recent justifications, are understandable, if not inevitable.

Acts of hatred call out for condemnation because silence implies consent.

Take a close look at the act of burning the Torah in an Israeli synagogue. It reveals a mindset. Vandalism of construction equipment or power lines or other infrastructure might suggest a protest against the building of settlements on land the Palestinians claim as their own (despite never having had sovereign control over it, and Jordan losing it in a war).

The burning of a Torah is something different entirely — an attack on Judaism itself, and what makes the Jews a people and the very document that attaches us to the land. It is the steadfast refusal of Palestinians for over a century (not just since 1967) to acknowledge the ancestral Jewish claim to the holy land of Israel that is the biggest stumbling block to peace.

Progress will come only when responsible leaders assert not only that Israel has a generic “right to exist” but that it is the land of the Torah, and deserves to be protected as such. This would go a long way toward encouraging its enemies to give up their dream of chasing us away.

Originally Published by: The Times of Israel 

Trump Is No Hitler

By: Eli Verschleiser

It is always valuable to study history for contemporary lessons. There is much to be learned from the period between World War I and World War II and the rise of history’s most brutal psychopath, Adolf Hitler. But perspective is equally important.

There has only been one Hitler and, God willing, there will only ever be one. Numerous tyrants have arisen since and, awful as they were, none of them were Hitler. There is no one alive today who comes close to the threat level of the former painter who manipulated his way into becoming one of the deadliest men who ever lived.

Are there parallels between the use of demagoguery and scapegoating today and Hitler’s rise to the top? Yes, there always is but it exists mostly in the Middle East, where some leaders continue to depict Jews and the state of Israel as an enemy that must be destroyed. This is a means of deflecting from the oppression within their own borders.

Donald Trump is not Hitler in the making, not even close. Making that comparison is not only an insult to every Nazi survivor, their children, but suggests those who make the comparison are shallow, ignorant and oblivious to history.

This is not a defense or endorsement of Trump. One doesn’t have to be a supporter to object to this characterization.

Donald J Trump

Hitler rose to power at a time when Germany, the Austrian’s adopted land, faced deep humiliation over their World War I defeat and suffered staggering hyperinflation, with one dollar equal to 4.2 billion marks in 1923. Germans literally needed a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread.

Americans are not facing anything like that level of despair. The economy shows strong signs of recovery and job numbers are on the rise. Trump is not playing class warfare or off economic fears. What he is doing is touching on real issues,, that are the source of considerable angst for millions of Americans:  The impact of illegal immigration and the threat of terrorism from Muslim extremists.

Unlike Hitler’s demagoguery against the Jews and other non-Aryans who were not to blame for Germany’s 1920s predicament, Trump did not invent these problems. Undocumented immigrants can and have included violent people who attack American citizens, and radical Muslims have more than once infiltrated our borders with intent to harm us.

A border wall and an all-out Muslim ban represent an obvious appeal to anger. But they do not make Trump, who had no problem with his daughter marrying a Jew and converting, into a Nazi.

Still, comedian Louis CK sends out an email blast trying to promote his TV show, warning that “the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the ’30s … Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all.”

Stick to your comedy Louis, and leave history to the scholars as Hitler is far from a funny topic.

But he’s not alone with the egregious comparison. When Trump asked supporters recently to raise their right hands and promise to vote for him, many news sources described the scene as “eerie,” evoking the right-hand-up Nazi salute.

So I guess every presidential inauguration, every swearing-in of a witness, every oath-taking of a police officer, lawyer or boy scout is a racist Nazi-fest, too.

It doesn’t end there. Ever since a Wall Street Journal reporter tweeted the first known references to Hitler in the New York Times, from November, 1922, numerous sources lately have tied it to Trump.

Quotes from an analyst in that prewar article suggest that Hitler didn’t really mean all that nasty stuff about Jews; he was just using it to further his agenda. "You can't expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims. You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti-Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you really are leading them."

Again: This isn’t Germany. It’s not the 1920s. The American people aren’t nearly as desperate as the Germans then.

Yes, I know Trump stumbled over the chance to denounce David Duke and the KKK when asked, although he later did, which showed his inexperience and perhaps arrogance because he didn’t want to be maneuvered into a soundbite without saying it on his own terms.

This does not make him a white supremacist.

If elected, Trump might be a good or bad president. But if the case of the latter America will survive him, and we will not devolve into Nuremberg laws, invading our neighbors or concentration camps for Mexicans or Muslims. Our Congress, our courts and our Constitution, but most of all our spirit wouldn’t allow that.

Americans may be obsessed with celebrity and prone to quick answers to complex problems, and overall sick and tired of a political system that does not speak to their interests.

But we are still proud and decent people, a beacon of freedom and democracy. I believe our system of government has the ability to turn an inexperienced leader into a strong one who will grow into the seriousness of his responsibilities.

If not, it is strong enough to preserve that office intact for the next leader.

BDS- Boycott Double Standards

By: Eli Verschleiser

As a horrifying wave of stabbing and shooting attacks against Israelis producing an almost daily body count, the United Methodist Church has decided to take decisive action.

A boycott aimed at Israel.

The church has announced that it will not allow its $20 billion pension fund to invest in five Israeli banks that have financed construction of housing in the West Bank.

In the wake of UN leader Ban Ki-Moon’s suggestion that violent Palestinian frustration is only a result of “human nature” and the Obama administration’s consistent policy that building apartments is as bad as or worse than terrorism, this particular approach to the problem should not surprise.

Other churches have flirted or grappled with similar boycotts, including the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Mennonites, the Church of England and the World Council of Churches. Academic and student groups, and even a grocery co-op in Brooklyn have put resolutions past their members, and some musical performers, notably Roger Waters, have declared they won’t appear before Israeli fans on either side of the Green Line.

There are many double standards at play here. Let’s take stock of them.

First, when it comes to so-called moral voices trying to impose peace, the onus always falls squarely on Israel, because the more powerful side is always assumed to be the one at fault. As mentioned before, it’s hard to place any economic pressure on the Palestinians, given their trade status. But what if the UN and EU, as a precondition to development funding, took a serious stand to push them to, at minimum, come to peace talks without preconditions? Maybe they could also crack down on violent incitement of youth who, no longer able to smuggle explosives past the security barrier, are now resorting to stabbing attacks.

Second, there are no such boycott, divestment and sanctions movements against countries that oppress their own people or others that match the scope and intensity of the boycott push against Israel.

Third, these moralists would like to pick and choose what they boycott. If you’re in, go all in. Don’t just boycott Israeli universities and banks and food products made on the West Bank.

Boycott the research pouring out of those universities every day that stand to greatly alleviate or cure diseases, from cancer and diabetes to malaria.

Boycott pharmaceuticals patented by Israeli companies like Rafa or Teva that greatly control symptoms and improve quality of life for the sick or injured. Boycott the Pentium chips, Motorola phone systems and Microsoft OS technology developed in partnership with those companies by Israelis.

And if you’re in California, stay thirsty rather than drink the water from the San Diego desalination plant Israelis are building to help alleviate the drought there.

Does it not seem disingenuous to denounce a country as belligerent and in great need of moral rectitude while availing yourself of all the wonders resulting from Jews unencumbered by fear of being chased out of their jobs, universities, homes and countries? That scenario happened to their parents or grandparents, and there are even those who experienced it personally, either in Europe or Arab countries.

Perhaps the Palestinian boycott organizers would also like to declare that they won’t use Israeli hospitals, like Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, which recently helped save the life of a 17-year-old suffering from a rare endocrine condition. Not likely. Even stick-in-the-mud Hamas will look the other way when it comes to quality Jewish medicine in the Middle East. Relatives of top Hamas officials have sought, and received treatment for serious diseases.

Israel’s government sees the BDS movement as nothing short of an effort to destroy the country as it exists today in favor of an untenable two-state solution that would leave the Jewish half within impossible borders. There may be some well-meaning activists who naively believe something positive can be accomplished by applying economic pressure on one side of the equation (the less violent half.)

But on the whole it seems plain that the pro-boycott movement isn’t after a just outcome in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, as much as a reversal of fortune for the Jews and an end to their contemporary self-determination.


If those folks really want to make a difference in the world, they should start by cleaning up their own house. Because when people are being stabbed to death in the streets, or on the receiving end of rocket attacks, and your only reaction is to pull money out of their banks, something’s not quite right with your moral center.

Originally Published: The Huffington Post