'Public Health Leaders' Must Condemn Terror

As the world recoils from yet another atrocity, offering platitudes of “standing with Manchester” while actually doing very little to challenge terrorism, the City University of New York’s School of Public Health is getting ready to send the wrong message to its graduates.

Linda Sarsour

Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, who has a history of inflammatory behavior toward Israel and its supporters and supports the violent intifada, will be a keynote speaker at that school’s commencement. She’ll share the stage with New York’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, and Mary Bassett, Commissioner of the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as “public health and social justice leaders.” This honor is ostensibly in recognition of her role in organizing the massive women’s march on Washington protesting against Donald Trump, in which potential cuts to health services were decried.

The irony is stark: It’s hard to conceive of a bigger public health threat than terrorism -- The weaponization of disaffected young people around the world via online channels, recruited to commit despicable acts in places like Jerusalem, San Bernardino, Orlando, Paris, Istanbul ....the list goes on.

Sarsour, who has forged alliances with many liberal Jewish leaders, condemned the 5/22 attack on the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, calling it in a Facebook post “a whole different level of evil” for targeting children, and “sickening.”

But such statements are inconsistent with her stated support for the Palestinian intifada and the boycott-divest-sanction movement against Israel. BDS is a form of soft terrorism, as it is focused on one side of the conflict with the intention of forcing Israel into territorial concessions that are against its interests. Given Israel’s precarious geography, those concessions could ultimately cost lives on a scale bigger than any one suicide bomb.

Activists gathered outside CUNY headquarters on May 25 to demand the invitation be revoked, but that’s unlikely, given the fallout from a similar controversy in 2011, when Jewish Israel critic Tony Kushner had his honorary degree yanked under pressure.  Pro-Kushner forces prevailed and the school did a 180.

Chancellor James Milliken released a statement in April saying “the fact that Ms. Sarsour might hold views that are controversial cannot be the basis for withdrawing an invitation to speak,” while noting that the university itself “sees BDS as anathema to the values of higher education.”

But where are those values when Sarsour declares that “you can’t be a Zionist and a feminist.” Is she kidding? Where in the Middle East are women’s rights protected better than in Israel, which had a female prime minister in 1969. Maybe she would prefer the feminism of Saudi Arabia, where women can’t drive, much less run for office, or of Jordan, where they need a husband’s permission to travel.

Israel’s leaders continuously cast aside politics in the name of humanity, allowing relatives of Hamas leaders who want to destroy them to be treated in Jewish hospitals, and sending aid around the world in times of need. Arab citizens have full rights in Israel and serve in the Knesset. And yet Linda Sarsour calls Zionism “creepy.”

CUNY isn’t the only public institution sending mixed signals about terrorism and the Middle East conflict.

A Public Broadcasting System curriculum is drawing fire from conservative critics for its effort to create understanding about the motivations of suicide bombers (who should more properly be called homicide bombers.)

The lesson plan “Dying to be a Martyr,” is 10 years old and likely came to light now because the fight over federal funding for public broadcasting, which is on President Trump’s budget chopping block. But that fact should not take away from serious discussion about the content.

High-school teachers are encouraged to show their students interviews with would-be Palestinian bombers. The lesson teaches students to empathize with violent Palestinian terrorists who are willing to murder Jews in Israel and beyond.

Perhaps there is a shred of a noble intention in this program’s origins, but it is at best naive, bordering on biased. There are many peoples in the world who collectively feel aggrieved and don’t resort to terrorism and violence, and they are better off as a result.

Page Fortna, an associate political science professor at Columbia University wrote in a recent paper, highlighted in The Atlantic following the Manchester bombing, that “The disadvantages of terrorism generally outweigh its advantages.” She concluded from a detailed study of 104 recent global conflicts that terror historically hurts rather than helps a cause. “None of those that deliberately killed large numbers of civilians through terrorist attacks won its fight outright,” Fortna said.

So it’s surely in no one’s interest to promote a mindset that terrorism is an inevitable (or effective) product of an uprising against a more powerful enemy.

In defending the programming, PBS in a statement said “In no way does it condone the heinous actions of individuals who would target innocent civilians. PBS would strongly condemn any assertion that terrorism is ever appropriate.”

But just watch the video, which features a sympathetic kid who ultimately decided that God told him not to carry out an attack in an Israeli town. Everything we know about these bombers, much of it from the videos they leave behind, is that they believe God wants the exact opposite. So it’s not as much frustration with lack of a peace diplomacy but rather a twisted religious fervor (denounced by mainstream Islam) that guides these acts.

PBS’s ombudsman, Michael Getler noted in a column that “Dying to be a Martyr” contains “what I consider to be some legitimate questions about the content, or more precisely as I read it, a lack of more contextual content, within this lesson plan.” He concurs that what is missing from the curriculum is instructions for teachers to denounce suicide bombing and radical Islamic views in general,” something we might assume to be a given. Some teachers, however, might be too afraid of offending people to do that.

There’s nothing healthy about either supporting terrorism outright or trying to understand it rationally, and the sooner institutions like CUNY and PBS realize that, the better off we’ll all be.

Originally Published by The Algemeiner

Left wing protests only strengthen the Right

By: Eli Verschleiser

Our country seems more sharply divided today than it has been for generations.

With a new president in the White House, only 14 percent of Democrats approve of his performance, compared with 90 percent of Republicans. The Pew Research Center has found that Americans of both parties are increasingly disapproving of a president of the opposite party, and that at the height of the election campaign 81 percent of Donald Trump supporters viewed life in America today as worse than it was 50 years ago, compared with just 11 percent who said it is better.



Among Hillary Clinton supporters’ 19 percent said life is worse, compared with nearly six-in-ten (59 percent) who said it is better.

Those divisions have been on sharp display since Trump won the election, with mass protests across the country. While mistakes have been made by the president and his staff during the breaking-in period (we can’t exactly call it a honeymoon) there have been calls for his impeachment, or worse. The media pounce on his every word and mistake.

“Not my president,” the protesters declare, while the Democrats in Congress, with their minority numbers in both houses tried feebly to block the appointment of the new Cabinet members.

Clearly, despite the loss of Congress and the White House, the Democrats have failed to learn the lessons from the populist victory of 2016. In different areas of the country, there were localized concerns but a few things united citizens in the 37 states in which a majority voted against Hillary Clinton.

Millions of Americans want to feel good about their country and want government to stay out of their lives except to provide a strong economy, protect their rights and defend them from harm. They also want borders that mean something and a prevailing sense of law and order, not condemnation of the cops and excuses for criminals.

As much as some moderate Democrats might like to take this into consideration and steer the party at least to the middle, the party is in the process of moving even further left. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 22, the Bernie Sanders wing of the party “has engaged in an intramural fight to remake the party in a more populist, liberal mold.” The goal of Sanders’ Our Revolution movement of five million, forged from Sanders surprisingly powerful presidential bid is “making party officials and elected Democrats more accountable to activists, and replacing them if they aren’t.”

That means the crowds that often take to the streets berating the police, waving Palestinian flags, supporting illegal immigration and occasionally turning violent will be steering the ship.

Will Tom Perez as newly minted leader of the party have a better clue to why so many voters find this abhorrent than his predecessor, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)?

Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal said after the Democrats chose their new leader that the selection of Perez shows the party isn’t ready to do any “soul searching about what happened in 2016,” but rather wants to “bring the Sanders people and their energy into the party.”

The difference between Perez and runner-up Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) in that race, Gigot said, was not ideological but rather a choice of “insider vs. outsider,” since Perez was an Obama Cabinet member. Ellison, with his troubling history on Israel and past support of Louis Farrakhan, is now the deputy party chairman.

Trump critics say they’re outraged over rising anti-Semitism, yet they have no problem raising the banner of hate against the Jewish state by calling for either its outright destruction or its severe weakening via economic sanctions and boycotts they think will pressure Israel into relinquishing territory to the Palestinians. The same voices never seemed as perturbed when anti-Semitism rose during the Obama years.

“Where are the liberal leaders when Jewish cemeteries are desecrated and campuses are painted with swastikas and racial slurs?” asked Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat, in a statement. “How are the leaders of the Democrats communicating with and reining in their followers when these crimes are committed? It’s simple. They’re not. Instead they’ve found an easy answer: Blame Trump.

“Should the President of the United States do more to stop these crimes? Absolutely. But to blame these anti-Semitic incidents on the Trump presidency is absurd. Anti-Semitic crimes were up 9 percent from 2014 to 2015. Does former President Obama own that?”

The continued protests weeks after the inauguration are appalling, at best. Are there that many people without jobs that have so much free time on their hands?

The president should be given a chance to articulate his agenda, set the country on a new path.

So President Trump is a reality TV star, yes we knew that. But I find myself less outraged at him and his policies than I am at the relentless critics who did not want to see Barack Obama go and wanted to continue socialist policies by electing Senator Bernie Sanders, or Hillary Clinton.

It has been nearly 30 years since a president handed the White House over to someone of the same party.

We only get one president at a time, and so the protesters should step back and acknowledge that people like me are more likely to look at what they are doing and move further to the right, not the direction they advocate.

Originally Published: The Hill

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

‘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

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.

Gaining light, not darkness, from a tragedy

By: Eli Verschleiser

According to the 2012 New York Jewish Population study, 32 percent of the New York area’s 1.54 million Jews—or some 492,800 people—identify as Orthodox.

That means that in tens of thousands of homes, perhaps more than 100,000 in the New York area alone, observance of Shabbat and major holidays means candles-burning and likely some kind of cooking or heating device in use for a prolonged period of time.

In response to the horrifying deaths of seven children in a cooking-related Friday-night fire in Brooklyn, a former Fire Department of New York lieutenant tells the Wall Street Journal he saw “four or five” hot-plate-related fires leading to death (not necessarily in Jewish homes) in the course of a 42-year career.

“A deadly plague of Shabbat fires,” blares a headline in The Forward, which mentions four fires in 15 years, which killed 11 people, tied to such cooking devices.

The New York Times warns that the “Sabbath routine [of extended food warming is] a risky practice,” according to officials.

Make no mistake: There is absolutely no acceptable number of fire deaths, no percentage of collateral damage to justify any risky behavior. Every possible aggressive effort should be made to reduce accidental deaths of all kinds to zero.

The Sassoon family devastated by the Brooklyn fire came from Israel, where smoke alarms are not as widely encouraged or used. That may be why they didn’t think to install them in their home.

A campaign to maximize home safety is welcome and necessary.

But for some, the tragedy offers an opportunity to reinforce a narrative that Orthodox Jews are somewhat backward and reckless, placing too much faith in G‑d to protect them from themselves, obsessing too much over Torah study at the expense of real-world lessons.

This is a patently offensive takeaway.

Between 2007 and 2011, cooking equipment was the number-one cause of home fires in the U.S., amounting to 43 percent of blazes, according to the National Fire Prevention Association. Those figures will surely include people who left the oven unattended, left food on the stove, kept flammable material too close, or used defective equipment. Given this volume, and the small Jewish population, observant Jews cannot be considered any more prone to such accidents than others, and statistically are very likely responsible for far fewer per capita. Any truly observant Jew knows that preserving life and limb trumps any other day-to-day religious practice.

Would critics consider the practices of Sabbath-observant Jews acceptable only with a zero incident rate? That’s a standard not applied to any other group, including skiers, subway riders, airline passengers, or motorists, all of whom, sadly, encounter fatal mishaps regularly.

An electric hot plate is generally intended to be used for extended periods, and each one sold must be approved for safety. Other devices routinely approved and sold, but known to cause fires, include TVs, toasters, dryers, dehumidifiers, and, lately, electronic-cigarette chargers.

It is the responsibility of every person who uses these devices to use them responsibly, in accordance with user manuals, and to make sure they are maintained in safe operating condition. But mishaps are a sad part of life.

It compounds these tragedies when people heartlessly suggest, even before all the facts are out, that victims are somehow to blame for their fate. People with too much time on their hands reveal their true agenda when they try to stigmatize religious people who perish under these circumstances.

Would they blame Christmas for a blaze that started from faulty wiring on a tree? Or patriotism for a fireworks display or barbecue gone awry on July Fourth?

It’s natural for human beings to want to attach a greater meaning to a tragedy so that it seems less likely to happen to them. It’s also natural for journalists to seek out the “trend story” to take the coverage beyond the initial reportage.

But what if this incident instead allowed for a deeper understanding of what Shabbat actually brings to the world? Thousands fewer cars on the road, reducing pollution and accidents. Less crowding in stores and on public transportation. And stronger, more functional families.

For those who accept this blessing in their lives, it’s a time of refocusing. In a universe where we are always connected, reachable, and on the move, Shabbat offers relief from it all, a day to share and be with family. It’s a day that we have long, sit-down meals together, where we are at peace with all that is around us.

Even in the darkest of tragedies, some light can be found. Better education about fire safety to preserve life can be one source. So could an opportunity for better understanding, rather than a rush to quick and often ugly judgments.

Originally Published: The Huffington Post

Why Jews Shouldn’t Necessarily Flee to Israel

The site of a Paris terror attack against a kosher market. Photo: JJ Georges via Wikimedia Commons.

By: Eli Verschleiser

For a people who wandered the globe for centuries in exile, the question of what constitutes a safe haven or just a temporary reprieve from persecution has been one with life or death consequences.

In recent history, the open arms of Germany turned into the deadliest of fists, and the Shah’s hospitable Iran became a hellish prison after the revolution. France betrayed its Jews once, collaborating too willingly with the Nazis to deport Jews, but for the most part it has historically been a place of thriving and growth.

Until now. Attacks against Jews, mostly in Paris and its suburbs, have risen sharply with the rise of Muslim immigrants, mostly from North Africa, who have set back relations with Muslims of longer standing in France that were largely positive. The French government has left no stone unturned in denouncing anti-Semitism, and cracking down on violent thugs and terrorists, with Prime Minister Manuel Valls saying “France without Jews is not France.” But an unpopular government’s power to protect 500,000 Jews is limited, caught between right-wingers who want to end immigration and left wingers who sympathize with Israel’s enemies.

Recent support for a Palestinian state and a greater role for the Palestinians in the United Nations – with attacks against Israelis on the rise, no progress toward peace, and persistent refusal to accept Israel’s legitimacy – send a mixed message.

That’s surely one reason aliyah to Israel is on the rise, with as many as 10,000 immigrants expected this year, up from 7,000 last year, which was double the 2013 number (economic factors such as France’s record unemployment surely also figure into it.)

I too would pick up my entire family and move. Having local police and soldiers on the ground for protection after terrorist attacks, while voting for a terrorist Hamas government to become a legitimate country, does not say much about the government’s sanity and surely does not bode well for the future.

We have seen disturbing videos of street clashes between Muslim and Jewish youths, and images of vandalized Jewish shops and shuls. While it’s important for the Christian-led government to denounce such acts, it’s even more crucial for the French Muslim community (hopefully the majority) not influenced by the radicals – who I still believe simply use Islam as their false claim to a religion – to stand up and show themselves and defend the Jewish people there.

But nevertheless, Islamic extremism is on the rise in France. It doesn’t help when the White House publicly shows ambiguity about the true nature of ISIS, downplaying the Islamic nature of the movement, depicting the savage attack on a kosher grocery store in Paris as not related to anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ideology.

While it is certainly self-evident that not all Muslims are terrorists, it is equally clear that nearly all the most dangerous terrorists today are Muslims. Not just France, but much of Western Europe has become a battleground, to the point that 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, some observers believe it’s easier to be a Jew in Poland than in Paris.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has wasted no time reinforcing Israel’s place as a safe haven for all Jews, but particularly the French. After the deadly Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher attacks, he told Paris Jews last month “The State of Israel is not just the place to which you turn in prayer. The state of Israel is also your home.” He sent a special delegation of ministers to help facilitate more immigrants.

Some, at least, are not ready to pack their bags just yet. After Netanyahu’s address at a Paris synagogue, they rose and sang the French national anthem.

Good for them. While staying in France or saying au revoir may one day be a life or death decision, we are not there yet. Bailing out en masse would inevitably means leaving the most vulnerable – the poor, the sick, the elderly – behind, almost powerless, as the Muslim population continues to rise in both numbers and influence.

Besides – we didn’t spend centuries wandering stateless in the diaspora and prevailing over numerous forms of adversity only to let bullies in 2015 tell us where to live.

Israel should be strengthened by Aliyah and an ingathering of the exiles. But on our terms, not theirs.

Originally Published: The Algemeiner 

Putin's Jewish Card

By: Eli Verschleiser:

The Kremlin's questionable claim of widespread anti-Semitism, which was used as partial justification for the annexation of Crimea, should not obscure the fact that President Vladimir Putin has genuinely championed the cause of Russian Jewry. This includes recognition and active support for a thriving Jewish community at home and close ties to Israel's top politicians, especially within the current ruling coalition.

More than 1 million Russians are now living in the Jewish state, giving Putin plenty of reasons to care about what happens there. If he is willing to throw caution to the wind and risk Western opprobrium on the presumption of threats to Jews and ethnic Russians, there are additional ways Putin can safeguard these strategic priorities.

As such, Putin should move against Iranian-backed terror networks around the world, and prepare a contingency for neutralizing Iran's nuclear facilities, in the event the P5+1 negotiations fail. Iran presents a strategic threat to Israel, and its terrorist clients target Jews in Israel and across the globe. These actions could even be coordinated with Washington in a way that helps re-establish Moscow's leadership credentials.

In addition, Putin should facilitate the orderly transition to a stable government in Syria. The world's largest humanitarian disaster is unfolding on Israel's doorstep. Unless Moscow intervenes, it is likely that any future Syrian regime will be hostage to unchecked terrorist forces eager to attack Israel's population centers. Putin is in a unique position to pressure or incentivize Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down and then help push Syria down the path toward peace and stability.

Putin can ensure that if Israel follows Russia's example by launching its own attack on Iran or taking unilateral actions to defend Jewish — and Russian — citizens in the West Bank or anywhere in Israel, it can offer support in the United Nations Security Council. Using Putin's own playbook, Israel should be within its rights to undertake serious but necessary measures that will not win it many friends in the global arena. The wisdom of such decisions will have to be weighed by Israeli leaders as the need or opportunity arises.

During this period of Russian-Ukrainian tension, Putin should make every effort to avoid singling out Ukraine's Jewish industrialists and community leaders. There should be no need to pit Russian Jews against Ukrainian Jews, or to paint Ukrainian Jewish leaders as anti-Russian. This will not lead to positive outcomes for Jews anywhere, including within Russia.

The best way for Putin to lock in his status as the best friend of the Jewish people would be to remove the Jewish card from the table. He should continue asserting Russia's national interests vis-a-vis Ukraine, which he should do regardless of international reactions. Invoking Jewish concerns, whether worthy or not, does not do Jews any favors and will not win any world leaders to its side. But the real danger is that it may stigmatize Jews as his puppets.

Moscow will act in its country's best interests, regardless of what the West says or does. But there may be ways to do so while reducing the negative fallout — for Russia, Jewish people and others worldwide.

Originally published by The Moscow Times