New Delhi: President Droupadi Murmu on Friday said the Jewish communities in India have maintained and enriched their unique heritage and traditions and will always be an integral part of the country’s composite society.
Welcoming a Parliamentary Delegation from Israel led by the Speaker of Knesset Amir Ohana, who had called on her, the president said over the last 30 years, the diplomatic relations between the two countries have grown into a multi-dimensional strategic partnership.
Murmu noted that throughout their long history, the Jewish communities in India have maintained and enriched their unique heritage and traditions, a statement issued by the Rashtrapati Bhavan said.
She said the Jewish people have been and will always be an integral part of India’s composite society.
The president said in India, Israel is well known as a key source of expertise in advanced agriculture and water technologies.
“Our collaboration in research and innovation has also boosted the Make in India’ initiative,” Murmu said.
“She was happy to note the success of Centres of Excellence’ set up with Israeli assistance across India,” the statement said.
Jerusalem: Israeli espionage agency Mossad and the Greek police have collaborated in foiling a plot to carry out a massive terror attack targeting Israelis and Jews in Greece and police are continuing searches in Athens and other parts of the country following the arrest of two Pakistani suspects in the case.
In a statement, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said Tuesday that the two Pakistani nationals – arrested by Greek police – were part of an Iranian terror network.
“The affair that was uncovered in Greece is a severe case that was successfully thwarted by the Greek security forces. It was an additional attempt by Iran to perpetrate terrorism against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad,” the PMO said.
“After the start of the investigation of the suspects in Greece, the Mossad rendered intelligence assistance in unravelling the infrastructure, its work methods and the link to Iran. The investigation revealed that the infrastructure that operated in Greece is part of an extensive Iranian network run from Iran and spanning many countries,” it added.
The two unnamed suspects, aged 27 and 29, are reportedly being held at police headquarters in central Athens. A third man, who is not in Greece, is wanted for questioning and has been charged in absentia.
Meanwhile, Greek police were continuing searches in Athens and other parts of the country. They are investigating whether other attacks on Jewish sites in Athens were being planned.
Local media reports indicated that the target of the attack was a Chabad House, which includes a Kosher restaurant and also hosts other religious services.
It is noteworthy that Pakistani terrorists who carried out the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai also targeted the Chabad House in the Indian metropolis.
Greek Police said the suspects had chosen a target of “high symbolism” and were making final preparations for the attack.
“Their aim was not only to cause the loss of life of innocent citizens but also to undermine the sense of security in the country while hurting public institutions and threatening (Greece’s) international relations,” the Greek police said.
The two Pakistanis were said to be a part of a “wide Iranian network that operates from Iran and out of many other countries”.
“An analysis of the seized information and digital data revealed and confirmed that the members of the network had already chosen as the target of the attack, a building of special importance; had carried out the reconnaissance of the area and the planning of the attack; and had received final instructions to carry out the attack,” a police statement carried by Greek news website Directus said.
According to the report, authorities began investigating the terror network following the 2021 arrest of two other Pakistani men suspected of planning attacks on Israelis. The network was linked to an Iranian plot foiled in Turkey last year, it said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen thanked Greece for foiling the plot.
“The Ayatollah regime in Tehran is exporting terror to the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the wider world. Only a tough stance and cooperation will halt the terror activities of the Iranian regime,” Cohen said in a tweet.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the arrest was “further proof of the superiority of Israeli intelligence and the importance of international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and its perpetrators”.
“The Mossad and Israel’s intelligence agencies will continue to ensure that wherever Iran seeks to act against our citizens, it will be met with an effective response,” he said.
Jerusalem: Israeli lawmakers have passed a controversial law banning all leavened bread products that are not kosher for the Passover holiday in hospitals, according to Orthodox Jewish law.
The law, sponsored by Israel’s hard-right and ultra-religious government, passed on Tuesday by a narrow margin of 48-43 in the 120-seat Knesset, or Parliament, reports Xinhua news agency.
The remaining lawmakers either abstained from voting or were absent during the vote.
The legislation follows religious Jewish laws that prohibit believers from eating wheat-based foods and beverages, known as “chametz”, during the seven-day Passover holiday.
The new law authorises hospital directors to ban the supply of “chametz” foods in hospitals and forbid visitors from bringing such items.
An earlier version of the controversial bill authorised hospital security staff to inspect visitors and search for “chametz” products, but the final version does not allow direct searches.
The law sparked anger and criticism, with opponents saying it imposes Jewish dietary restrictions on non-religious people.
A significant portion of the Israeli population may be affected by the new law, despite not practicing Judaism or observing Jewish dietary laws.
According to official figures, about 20 per cent of Israel’s 9.7 million population are Muslim or Christian Arabs, and more than 40 per cent of the Jewish population live a secular lifestyle.
Addressing the Knesset, opposition leader Yair Lapid, who heads the liberal Yesh Atid party, denounced the law as “forcing Judaism” on citizens.
Uriel Boso, a lawmaker with the ultra-Orthodox party of Shas, argued in the Knesset that the law is “balanced”.
According to Boso, the coalition drafted the bill after the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that hospitals do not have the authority to ban “chametz” during Passover.
Passover, also called Pesach, is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt. This year it begins at sundown on April 5 and ends on April 13.
The law comes as Israel was facing three-week-long massive protests over a contentious plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to overhaul the judiciary and weaken the Supreme Court.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
In a statement of facts accompanying the case, the FBI special agent who investigated Resnick indicated that an April 8 POLITICO story played a role in the FBI’s identification of Resnick, when a tipster brought it to the bureau’s attention.
At the time, the Jewish Press’ editorial board defended Resnick’s presence at the Capitol, contending that he was there in a professional capacity to cover the events of the day.
“The Jewish Press does not see why Elliot’s personal views on former President Trump should make him any different from the dozens of other journalists covering the events, including many inside the Capitol building during the riots, nor why his presence justifies an article in Politico while the presence of other reporters inside the building does not,” the board wrote.
But videos and images from that day portrayed Resnick as an active participant in the unrest, pushing his way to the doors of the Capitol, waving rioters on and bursting through the rotunda doors despite resistance from police. Prosecutors included images suggesting Resnick aided other rioters’ entry into the building.
In addition, Resnick never printed any articles or accounts of Jan. 6, despite his active presence on social media and perch at the Jewish Press. In the same statement, the board described this as an institutional decision: “The Jewish Press decided not to print any article — by Elliot or anyone else — in our print edition because of the heated atmosphere surrounding the day’s events, especially within New York’s Orthodox Jewish community.”
In the charging documents, the agent on the case noted that she was “aware of and has complied with the U.S. Department of Justice’s News Media Policy,” which prescribes guidance and limits on the way prosecutors investigate and charge members of the press.
Resnick, according to the charging documents, was inside the Capitol for about 50 minutes, based on a review of CCTV footage and other video captured by media and members of the mob.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
My children are blessed to have been raised in a country different from the Germany of the 1930s and the Poland of the immediate postwar era. Both of my parents are refugees from European antisemitism, and my mother’s comments about her experiences in Poland can seem mysterious to my kids. They haven’t been raised with material exhibitions of antisemitism, and our discussions about it over the years have seemed more like lessons in history.
But antisemitism is on the rise again in the United States. Harmful tropes have returned to explicit politics, with help from the last president. Meanwhile, remarks by Kanye West and Nick Cannon echo ancient conspiratorial themes.
My two children are seven and 11. They are Black and Jewish and have to understand racism and antisemitism when most adults don’t or won’t understand either. How do we address these issues with them?
Black children growing up in America absorb much about race from their environment. Many live in largely segregated cities and experience largely segregated spaces – they see what is happening from an early age. The repeated instances of police violence and Black protest, followed by white backlash – what the historian Elizabeth Hinton calls “the cycle” – do not go unnoticed by Black children.
Meanwhile, leading Republican candidates talk in antisemitic stereotypes – the “dual loyalty” trope that Jewish Americans have a primary loyalty to Israel, or conspiracy theories such as QAnon that resemble the ancient Christian antisemitic conspiracy theory of blood libel. My 11-year-old likes Ye’s music, and now feels bad listening to it. But it’s important that my kids recognize that the narratives he and others share are already embedded in American society.
For some Jewish Americans, remarks and posts by Ye, Cannon and Kyrie Irving come together in a concept that one could, very tendentiously, label “Black antisemitism”. But we must be vigilant to the fact that what could be mislabeled as such is instead antisemitism of other varieties. If Ye describes Jewish financial domination, or control of the media, it is not “Black antisemitism”. It is garden-variety American antisemitism. Christian nationalism is the view that the US was founded as a Christian nation, and its exceptional nature is a testament to the abiding Christian character of its founding laws and culture. Christian nationalism is also a traditional source of antisemitism, the blame for which can hardly be placed on Black Americans.
Even when we look at antisemitic comments made by Black Hebrew Israelites, or some of the leaders of the Nation of Islam, we need to ask whether the antisemitism has anything to do with being Black American, or rather some other source (eg certain forms of Christianity or Islam). There are a variety of sources of antisemitism. None of them are specifically Black.
It is tempting for Jewish Americans to displace the threat of antisemitism on to another minority group. But the real threats we Jewish people face in America have nothing to do with Black Americans, who generally have been and always will be our allies.
US anti-Black racism, unlike antisemitism, is at the heart of the policies that formed our country. The legacy of slavery runs deep in our institutions, culturally and otherwise. Antisemitism, on the other hand, is less intrinsic to the American identity.
James Baldwin in 1985. Photograph: Associated Press
As Black Americans are to the United States, Jews were to many European nations – for centuries, their national minority. Elections swung on their issues. The Nazis killed two out of three European Jews. Even in Poland, a country where we numbered for centuries 10% of the national population, it is as if we were never there.
As James Baldwin powerfully argued, in his 1967 essay Negroes Are Antisemitic Because They’re Anti-White, this European past, as horrific as it was, has not prevented many Jewish Americans from claiming the privileges of whiteness here. Baldwin aptly writes: “One does not wish, in short, to be told by an American Jew that his suffering is as great as the American Negro’s suffering. It isn’t, and one knows that it isn’t from the very tone in which he assures you that it is.” Even my Black Jewish American children, as young as they are, are keenly aware of these facts. They also know that unlike most American Jews, they cannot escape into whiteness.
The reality is that the fate of Black and Jewish Americans are linked, as Jewish people are characteristically targeted by conspiracy theories that are at the heart of white ethnonationalism and fascism. “Until we see antisemitism as a toxic species of the white supremacy that threatens Black security,” Michael Eric Dyson has written, “none of us are truly safe.”
My kids’ strong sense of social justice is, I recognize, in large part personal – for example, the journeys of all refugees from hatred and discrimination remind them of my parents’ similar flights. Antisemitic conspiracy theorists, however, have a quite different view of the source of Jewish support of refugees. According to classic Nazi thinking, Jews were instead drawn to supporting refugees because it was a method to dilute and weaken native white Christian populations. “The Jews will not replace us,” uttered in Charlottesville, Virginia, in a very different political and historical context, is a clear reference to this; it also fueled the murder of Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018.
In Nazi and KKK ideology, Jews are the secret agents behind social justice movements. But even recent attacks on critical race theory (CRT) target Jews and Blacks together, albeit covertly. Attacks on CRT are a version of the old “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory, and as such appeal to antisemites, who will make the racist assumption that the “theorists” behind it are Jews. There are clear overlaps in the multiple conspiracy theories behind European fascism and those animating the far right in the US. Both target Black people and Jewish people simultaneously.
We owe to Black writers and thinkers very early recognition of these parallels. As the historian Matthew Delmont has memorably put it, Langston Hughes in 1937 essentially described fascism as Jim Crow with a foreign accent. The Pittsburgh Courier, one of the main Black newspapers in the US, had a “Double V” victory campaign in the 1940s – victory was to be fought abroad against fascism and here against racism. Black Americans knew that Nazism was a racist project, since antisemitism is a form of racism. As I see it, and tell my children, Black Americans are Jewish Americans’ greatest allies against the forces facing both of us here. More generally, fascist antisemitism is simultaneously mixed with threats to other minorities and marginalized groups and we need to stand against it together.
Mourners hug last year after lighting a candle in memory of Melvin Wax, one of 11 Jewish worshippers killed at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Photograph: Gene J Puskar/AP
Some prominent Black American intellectuals, as well as the movements their work has helped spark, have directed ire against actions taken by the state of Israel, which subjects Palestinians to mass over-policing, over-incarceration, and unjust imprisonment. The ubiquitous intrusive checkpoints remind many of the straight line between Jim Crow, Ferguson and Palestine. But my kids are being raised as American Jews, not as citizens of another nation. They are similarly critical of these actions of the state of Israel, and its current direction, as are many other young American Jews.
All talk of “Black antisemitism” is therefore nothing more than a dangerous distraction. Here is the reality.
The most specific threat as a group we Jewish people face in America is the omnipresent threat we Jews will always face, the threat of Christian nationalism, including forms of Christianity that are deeply and sophisticatedly based on Christian teachings. It’s Christian nationalism that maintains that Jews must play a subordinate role in the workplace and elsewhere to Christians. These forms of Christianity have for countless centuries been our most dedicated ideological enemy. As Christian nationalism rises, you will see more antisemitism of the variety that grants that while Jews shouldn’t be exterminated, they need to take a cultural and political backseat to Christians.
Christian nationalists see Israel as belonging, at least for now, to Jewish people – but they feel the US is theirs. They explicitly want American Jews to be second-class citizens. This is Ye’s real beef, and it’s an ancient one. His claim that Jews should work for Christians is not “Black antisemitism” (whatever that would be) – it is rather a traditional, perpetually threatening form of antisemitism.
I invite my children to embrace the remarkable American promise of a multiracial, multireligious democracy, inclusive and fully accepting of the many identities that make up a free society. But it would be foolish to leave them ignorant about the very real obstacles to this ideal.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
