Secretary Kristi Noem and the Department of Homeland Security announced $94 million in federal grants to over 500 Jewish-based organizations across the United States.
I recently sat down with Rabbi Sanford Akselrad from Congregation Ner Tamid, who told me the temple spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on security.
"The fight against hate against the Jews would morph yet again, um, so when someone says that they are, they, they love Jews but they, but they hate Israel and you get a little deeper, what do they mean by that… and usually when they go into the territory not of being critical of Israel which is fair game. But they say Israel has no right to exist at all now… we get into the area of antisemitism," Akselrad said.
More grants are expected in the coming months.
This is the type of shit that leads to pogroms and lies like “The Elders of Zion.”
Benefits Netanyahu short term. Hurts Jews long term.
Israel has gone out of its way to eliminate sympathy towards Jewish survivors of the holocaust.
But they say Israel has no right to exist at all now
This gets a little philosophical, but do nations have some specific right to exist? People certainly do have a right to exist, but I just don’t see this applying to a governmental entity. We hear about human rights, but not nation rights. And if we are going to apply it to nations, then the next question is: does Palestine have a right to exist?
How many nations in other parts of the world have been “eaten” by imperialism? Does Hawaii have the right to exist as its own separate nation? Where’s the outcry for them?
It seems you’re conflating the words nation and state. A nation is a group of people with a shared, named identity, such as Hawaiian or Palestinian. A state is an officially recognized group with sovereignty over an area of land. Many nations exist which do not have their own states.
All nations have the right to exist by the human right to freedom of association. Sovereign states have no right to exist: their existence is asserted and defended by force and by mutual recognition with other sovereign states.
A nation is a group of people with a shared, named identity, such as Hawaiian or Palestinian
Hmm, I dont think this is true in the most common usage, but it’s also not what is meant when people challenge the notion of Israel’s ‘right to exist’.
Nobody contends that the “shared identity” of Israel has no right to exist, only that Israel as a capital-J Jewish State has no unique or exclusive right to self-determination in Historic Palestine. No state or nationality has a right to deny the self-determination of another group on the basis of ethnic identity.
Nobody contends that the “shared identity” of Israel has no right to exist
That’s where things get tricky. There clearly are people who claim Israel (and Jews in general) as a shared identity and cultural group have no right to exist. These people are traditionally called Nazis.
You’ll also run into trouble talking about historic Palestine, previously part of the Ottoman Empire, and long prior to that the Kingdom of Israel (around 1047-930 BCE). The Israelis aren’t simply a group of Ashkenazi Jews who moved to the Middle East during the Holocaust. They’re a people who have lived in the area for thousands of years and maintained a distinct culture throughout occupation by other empires.
There clearly are people who claim Israel (and Jews in general) as a shared identity and cultural group have no right to exist. These people are traditionally called Nazis.
Yup, and those Nazis largely supported the Zionist mission of a Jewish state, both because they wanted the Jews to emigrate out of Europe and because they hated Arabs almost as much as they hated Jews. Nazis and Zionists share a strictly defined understanding of cultural and ethnic boundaries, and a belief that geographical boundaries are a reflection of those boundaries (or ought to). It’s only really tricky if your understanding of Zionism and Israel is limited to the specific group that is doing the cleansing.
The Israelis aren’t simply a group of Ashkenazi Jews who moved to the Middle East during the Holocaust. They’re a people who have lived in the area for thousands of years and maintained a distinct culture throughout occupation by other empires.
The jewish diaspora is almost as defined by their shared cultural heritage with their middle eastern neighbors as it is by their origin. You can’t draw a clean ethnic or cultural boundary around Israel that’s separate from their arabic brothers and sisters. That’s exactly the problem with zionism - it attempts to forcefully separate the cultural inheritance of its arabic history and expel it from both the geographical and cultural boundaries of Israel.
People who oppose Israel as a Jewish state do so because they see Zionism as a mission of ethnic and cultural purification, not because it’s a symbolic representation of Jews as an entire people. That’s what makes the conflation of anti-zionism and antisemitism so nefarious.
The word nation has come to mean nation-state. Borders changing does not equate people changing anymore.
Does MAGA like Jews? I was under the impression they supported Israel but hated Jews, because…MAGA.
They like a very particular kind of Jewish person the same way they like a very particular kind of Christian. That being hardcore conservatives who use religious doctrine as a cover for bigoted dog whistling and nothing more.
No religious body should ever receive federal money for anything short of a natural disaster to repair their assets. Jews, Baptists, Muslims, Buddhists, etc… they’re all the same in my eyes, and should be in the eyes of the government. They are all fucking loony toons that believe in ghosts, and that shit has no place in law and government. Let them fail for their beliefs or grow up and join and evolve with society.
Notice it’s to protect Jewish organizations, not Jewish people.
Apparently it is now antisemitic to speak out against an organization you disagree with, even ones that bear a strong resemblance to what would otherwise be labeled a terrorist organization.
The problem of course is that there ARE antisemites out there mixed in with all the people upset with the US and Israeli governments.
Its antisemitic to not fund organizations that pay for settler terrorism in the west bank actually
Any state that does not guarantee equal rights for it’s people should not exist. Hate has nothing to do with it.
Can I be Jewish now? I promise I’ll get organized for that amount of money.
You don’t have to be Jewish you just have to have a Jewish organization.
I have nigh-zero organization, let alone Jewish of it. 😭
Now use that money to protest against ICE
Why would they? Ice doesn’t kick out Jewish people.
They do if they look brown.
And you know that there are black and brown Jews.
That is true.
Not yet
I didn’t think it would cost that much to send them to Israel
Most Jews want to go to Israel about as much as most Anglo Saxons want to go to the US.
I agree but I am of Anglo Bassoonon descent
Not everyone can be piccolo, Shirley….
They can try, but the name is not Shirley.
