How many times have you sat quietly while one of our local organizations, leaders or community members accused someone of antisemitism or anti-Israel sentiment when, in fact, the motivation of the speaker, writer or non-Jewish leader was anything but?

The situation this month involving the Bay stores and Ahava cosmetics from Israel was a good example of this. As you might recall, Ahava products were pulled from the Bay’s shelves at the same time a virulent anti-Israel group, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, was calling for a boycott of Israeli goods. Ultimately, we learned from Bonnie Brooks, CEO of the Hudson’s Bay Company (in a joint statement with the Canada-Israel Committee) that the products weren’t selling well and were being re-branded, and, therefore, the chain was curtailing sales, for a while.

The Bay’s timing was poor, but clearly there was no anti-Israel motivation in its decision. And while the shelves were cleared, a well-oiled machine – consisting mainly of hard-right bloggers and others caught in the maelstrom – began to churn. Unresearched communiqués flew through cyberspace, calling for a boycott of the Bay and the destruction of its high-interest-rate credit cards.

Individuals and groups such as B’nai Brith accused the chain of caving in to anti-Israel boycotters. Even after statements were made clarifying the situation, B’nai Brith continued to criticize the Bay and said it should consider advertising in B’nai Brith’s newspaper to make amends for its bad judgment. It was embarrassing to the entire Jewish community.

It was also wrong.

So we jumped the gun. It happens. In a world of instant communication, in which many don’t hesitate for a moment to vilify the Jewish state, one can understand the motivation. But at the end of the day, we sullied the reputation of a chain that has been carrying Israeli products for years. The Bay stated clearly that it had no interest in joining an anti-Israel boycott, a stance that could have a great impact on other retailers. It did exactly what we expect of it.

We screwed up.

So what do we do now as a people that pursues what is just? We apologize. We publicly call for our community members and others to shop at the Bay. As people who know what it’s like to be falsely accused, we declare that it’s time for our family to buy a new towel set at our local Bay store. But if we decide that we will stand firm and believe that the Bay is anti-Israel, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the company, and even more so to ourselves. Effectively, we are alienating our allies, blaming our friends and humiliating ourselves by taking a position that stores such as the Bay are guilty even when proven not guilty.

B’nai Brith would have acted in our interest, and done what was right, by being contrite and stating loudly that it misread the situation and responded incorrectly. When antisemites clash the cymbals of hatred in our ears, we should be grateful that goups such as B’nai Brith exist. They, like Canadian Jewish Congress, do a fine job, mostly. We are fortunate to have them watch out for us.

 But when they’re wrong about a group, company or person – when someone has no intention of weakening Israel – let’s accept that reality and act like menschen. Shop at the Bay. The company deserves our apology.

“It’s because I’m a Jew isn’t it?”

•”The Nazism of the Jews does not skip women and children, it scares everyone. They make war against people’s livelihood, plunder their moneys and threaten their honor … They took advantage of key elements in unfolding events, and accumulated a huge and influential material wealth which they put to the service of implementing their dream ….”

•(Jews) control of the world media (and use their) wealth to stir revolutions … They stood behind the French and the Communist Revolutions.”

•”There was no war that broke out anywhere without their (Jews’) fingerprints on it.”

The key players in the Middle East brouhaha today are: Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO and Syria. Each one of them is governed by violent, brutal, cruel and sadistic men, frothing and dripping anti-Israel feelings and anti-Semitic beliefs.

Israel is sandwiched like corn beef on rye, between them, commonly fending of a barrage of missiles of all sorts hurled at her citizens – our people.

We the Jewish people and the State of Israel are blessed to have enemy’s who will suicide to death in their cause. Their passion runs deeply. We are their passion. A beheading to them is a victory. Their schoolyard bullying tactics designed to inflict mental and physical grief on the Jewish people seem to give them pleasure.

A recent animated video released by Hamas showing Gilad Shalit’s (the Jewish people’s most famous hostage ever) Father wandering the streets only to find the coffin of his son, is expressive of the heartless nature of our enemy.

While the Israelis are a rough and tough nation they are a diminutive nation, challenged by the natural affairs of any country, but constantly, regularly, persistently, confronted by outer force intent upon their destruction.

An entity of loathing has arisen once again and threatens to destroy us, once again. The Hamas charter states (quoting Mohammad), “The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews)….The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

We seem to be their every breath. What to do?

Reading all of this, considering its meaning it remains so difficult for most of us, I’m sure, to determine natural level of sensitivity that lies inside the Arab soul. Who in fact are the children of Ishmael? What do they really want from us? What is our task in all of this?

How is it they loathe and scorn us so; will tirelessly donate a gold coin of vengeance and ruin toward operations levied at Israel and the Jewish people? On the face of it, it seems Hamas, Hezbollah and their wretched Iranian (government) brother live to huddle and strategize on means of obliterating us. Why do they froth so at our existence?

I do not believe, unlike many of my family, friends and colleagues all Arabs/Muslims fall into this category. I do believe however, a small minority can concoct and shower shear and utter devastation on us, if they keep at it, as they are. Of this, I am not naïve.

So where do we go with this? Staring at this familiar and bleak future are we to continue playing poker on Tuesday nights unabated?  Are we to pretend life is fine and the IDF, Canada, the Americans and sometimes the Brits, will have our backs?

Do we sit around, pretending history will not repeat itself. Everything will be just fine?

Or are we, in the back of our insecure Jewish minds preparing for the eventual onslaught of tyranny and anti-Semitism we studied about in Talmud Torah?

You know my friends, we do not have a plan. There is no collective grass roots and organizational plan to understand and stave off anti-Semitism. Nobody is thinking about our enemy and friends in the entire world and ways to fight and embrace them. If they are, let me know if you’ve been contacted?

The banishing of all English Jews. The Spanish Inquisition. The Chmielnicki Uprising. The Holocaust.  The Dreyfus Affair. Things of the past?  

Oh what a stupid people we can be.

Listen to the words of those who hate Israel and the Jewish people now that Flottila-Gate is upon us.

Wait for stuff like:

- Hitler didn’t finish his job

- Nazi Israel

- Apartheid Israel

- Jewish children to the ovens.

Just wait. It’s coming.

JEWISH CHILDREN TO THE OVENS.

Imagine saying or thinking such a thing. My God. People do though. In Toronto, New York, Paris, Argentina….and in the Middle East. More than we’d like to know.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is coming.

And remember when it does it is pouring forth from the mouths of people, many of whom,  would not think twice about hurting a Jew or another human being. It does not stop with their language.

Speech is not simply a formulation of syllables and an expression of noise. It has meaning. It does hurt. It is an action. It can be the beginning of a very painful shocking jab, slice and punch.

 Consider how you would feel if I looked at you with anger, fierce fire in my eyes and I said, “I’m going to throw your baby in that hot fire.”

Consider that. I have heard those words and yes, worse.

I am a Jew and familiar with the history of anti-Semitic epitaphs. They stung and we’re only the beginning of something far more horrendous.

The pitchers of such words and phrases are warming up and have found a reason too, regardless if it is logical or not.

The words are coming. To those of you, who condemn Israel for Flotilla-Gate, listen closely to the response. It will be far more than: where is the enquiry? International courts? A balanced report.

It will sound more like, “A good Jew is a dead Jew.” Wait and see. It will be more so, “Death to all Jews”. It should be hear in a few hours. I am bracing.

Find our friends and make them understand. Now is the time.  Watch our enemies. Listen to them. They are very serious and do not mince words, and do not intend upon coddling little Jewish children. Not at all.

The old man’s back was hunched. He stared at the ground, seeing just enough in front of him so as not to crash into somebody, trip over the homeless man.

How strange it must be to watch the ground while others see the horizon. How familiar with the pavement cracks he must be. How many times did he save his mother’s back from being broken? He is hunched. He is bent.

That is what we’re like sometimes – our community and our people. We’re crooked and we’re bent. Why must that be so?

Over the centuries, the weight of the pyramid stones, the 13th of Adar (the Fast of Esther), Haman, and the rocks and rubble we were forced to carry on our shoulders pushed us down and down, over and over  again.

We couldn’t stand erect?

But don’t you know that the pyramids are already built and the Nazis lie dormant for now? And if you know that, and if you are aware of these facts, you can stand upright for now. Then why don’t you?

Theodor Herzl died in 1904 at age 44, but only after he heard the people of France yelling, “Death to the Jews,” and only after this secular journalist scoffed at the peasants and the pogroms and the Inquisitors. He listened and heard the pulsing vibrations of anti-Semitism and lifted his eyes and straightened his spine until he was as tall as he could be.

Somewhere in his Jewish soul and mind, he knew, like the biblical Jacob, how to defend his nation, his family. Jacob divided up the camp and sent his flocks ahead, his strategy while Esau headed toward him. He acted.

Herzl did, too. He did not sit quietly in make believe, or pretend that all was well. He planted the seeds that grew the State of Israel. He was not bent.

You are walking with eyes down,  but nobody will save our people if we do not first save ourselves.

There is only one answer to all of this. Israel is mighty, but it was also so before the rise of the Assyrians, Romans, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans. A spine can only bend so much. Doesn’t it seem as if the pressure on Israel is growing?

Diaspora Jewry is strong but small and defenceless, really, without Israel and friends. We act though as if it has always been this way, as if our people have always been in Congress, the Senate, Parliament and the Supreme Court; and heads of banks and schools.

But we forget there was a time a few short decades ago when we hid away on our knees – a Jew, a secret.

There is only one answer. We must fight to make friends. We must battle with our enemies. Each of us must create allies on our street, in our cities, in our countries – everywhere. This is a plan, like Jacob’s, like Herzl’s.

This is a plan. It must come from all of us. We are all leaders.

We must send flocks ahead and set tables for our friends to eat with us. We must be stocky, able to defend ourselves. This is a plan. Without one, we are stooping. How blind will we allow ourselves to get. How bent will our backs become?

How familiar will we be with the cracks?

Post copies of this around the house. Just reading it does nothing.

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Question: What are you doing to fight anti-Semitism?

It’s that time again. Israeli Apartheid Week has come and gone. The Swedes are acting out, and anti-Semitism quietly operates under slimy rocks, keeping a low profile, until bam, “Gaza” happens again. The danger is there. Do we see it? Are we acting?

Diaspora and Israeli Jewry make world-class software, hardware and medical equipment. We create wealth, write books, win Oscars, are bank presidents and chancellors of Universities, and even grow football, hockey and baseball stars.

Our ability to create communities and organizations is unmatched. We have friends in the right places (not enough) because we are loyal. This is not ego. This is pride.

We are better positioned and developed than ever before to fight anti-Semitism, know who are friends are and make many more.   

But we are not doing these things,

I write this to you in the voice of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. This visionary Zionist and Jewish activist exclaimed to European Jewry in the 1930s that they were “living on the edge of the volcano.” They did not listen, and a chapter was written for us in which the protagonist, we the Jewish People, fell off a cliff. Recall your falling dreams and the feeling in your gut when you were unable to grab onto a single branch.

Jabotinksy was right. Few listened.  We fell, and toppled hard. The ground has not since reached us.

Jewish organizations are doing a splendid job of fighting anti-Semitism, but they cannot do it alone, although they often want to. Jewish community workers work courageously, but like a pianist, they can only play one march at a time. They are not enough.

The State of Israel protects us, as God did the Jewish People in the dessert. Our manna is their existence. The world knows Israel embraces us and will rescue us should we be taken hostage by this era’s highwaymen, but that is not enough. Israel is overextended and small. It is not enough.

When anti-Semitism crawls out from underneath that mossy, bug-infested rock – and it will – all the organizations and professional staff will be surrounded by wagon trains of hatred creating deafening noises. They will know then that they are not enough.

I therefore, once again, call upon our leadership and every Jewish community member in the world to assemble and create, through our vast treasures, a world body whose mandate is to develop and implement a strategy to fight anti-Semites and find and make friends with non-Jews.

I am asking you not to put this article down, but rather to post it around your house as a wake-up for you and your family from an unreal sleep. Anti-Semitism is here.

Wake up and recognize that we are the most blessed people in the history of personkind. We can learn Torah freely, debate politics, compose symphonies, read poetry, visit Thailand, drive a Hummer, sleep peacefully and wear silk and cashmere. We have it all.

And with this comes responsibility to act. I ask you to ponder your comfort and then think about the Jews of France, Sweden and Venezuela. They are us. They are in trouble.

Tell our leaders it’s time we designed such an entity. We must stop crying over our losses and bemoaning anti-Semitism. The shivah is over. We must instead fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.

Do so, oh sleepy brothers and sisters. Toronto is a good place to start.

It’s that time again. Israeli Apartheid Week has come and gone. The Swedes are acting out, and anti-Semitism quietly operates under slimy rocks, keeping a low profile, until bam, “Gaza” happens again. The danger is there. Do we see it? Are we acting?

Diaspora and Israeli Jewry make world-class software, hardware and medical equipment. We create wealth, write books, win Oscars, are bank presidents and chancellors of Universities, and even grow football, hockey and baseball stars.

Our ability to create communities and organizations is unmatched. We have friends in the right places (not enough) because we are loyal. This is not ego. This is pride.

We are better positioned and developed than ever before to fight anti-Semitism, know who are friends are and make many more.   

But we are not doing these things,

I write this to you in the voice of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. This visionary Zionist and Jewish activist exclaimed to European Jewry in the 1930s that they were “living on the edge of the volcano.” They did not listen, and a chapter was written for us in which the protagonist, we the Jewish People, fell off a cliff. Recall your falling dreams and the feeling in your gut when you were unable to grab onto a single branch.

Jabotinksy was right. Few listened.  We fell, and toppled hard. The ground has not since reached us.

Jewish organizations are doing a splendid job of fighting anti-Semitism, but they cannot do it alone, although they often want to. Jewish community workers work courageously, but like a pianist, they can only play one march at a time. They are not enough.

The State of Israel protects us, as God did the Jewish People in the dessert. Our manna is their existence. The world knows Israel embraces us and will rescue us should we be taken hostage by this era’s highwaymen, but that is not enough. Israel is overextended and small. It is not enough.

When anti-Semitism crawls out from underneath that mossy, bug-infested rock – and it will – all the organizations and professional staff will be surrounded by wagon trains of hatred creating deafening noises. They will know then that they are not enough.

I therefore, once again, call upon our leadership and every Jewish community member in the world to assemble and create, through our vast treasures, a world body whose mandate is to develop and implement a strategy to fight anti-Semites and find and make friends with non-Jews.

I am asking you not to put this article down, but rather to post it around your house as a wake-up for you and your family from an unreal sleep. Anti-Semitism is here.

Wake up and recognize that we are the most blessed people in the history of personkind. We can learn Torah freely, debate politics, compose symphonies, read poetry, visit Thailand, drive a Hummer, sleep peacefully and wear silk and cashmere. We have it all.

And with this comes responsibility to act. I ask you to ponder your comfort and then think about the Jews of France, Sweden and Venezuela. They are us. They are in trouble.

Tell our leaders it’s time we designed such an entity. We must stop crying over our losses and bemoaning anti-Semitism. The shivah is over. We must instead fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.

Do so, oh sleepy brothers and sisters. Toronto is a good place to start.

Over the last couple of years I have written and talked about the idea of initiating an international entity that would deal exclusively with anti-Semitism. This movement/organization would not only fight anti-Semitism where it stands, on a policy and grass roots level, but also develop and implement strategies to make friends and nurture those we have.

I am impatient for such an organization/movement to be launched. It is something that will require much thought, teamwork and resources and likely be housed in the Diaspora and Israel.

I have not pushed the idea in a while as we, the Jewish people, seem to be recovering from the fall out of Gaza, licking our wounds, of which there are many. I do feel, however that the time will come soon when this idea has to be spoken about again.

For now: please let me know if you have any thoughts on this; how you would see it unfolding; what would it look like?

Thanks, Avrum

This triumvirate of Israel/Jew haters is on schedule with a plan to destroy the Jewish state.

Israel responds with strength by closing its border with Gaza and positioning troops in the north. Quotes roll off the tongues of government spokespeople by the hour, declaring Israel’s right to defend itself, even pre-empting an attack, when faced with the threat of nuclear war.

Around the world, Israeli ambassadors are called into government offices and rebuked for their country fuelling the flames of war in the Middle East. They’re lectured by foreign ministers in Argentina and Ghana, and told these nations will sever ties with Israel if the Israel Defence Forces doesn’t immediately withdraw from the northern and southern borders and back down from a threat of a nuclear strike against Iran.  

The Doomsday Clock clicks one minute closer to midnight.

While all of this is happening, anti-Semitism creeps out of the boiler rooms of the hateful and begins to harass and vandalize shuls, synagogues, temples, Jewish schools and cemeteries and Jewish-owned businesses. Swastikas are scrawled on Jewish homes on Glencairn Avenue, Chabad Gate and Harbord Street.

Anti-Semitic noise heightens on the Internet, and Jew-baiting and Jew-hating becomes a little bit more acceptable. Angry youths openly wear T-shirts with hyperbolic anti-Semitic jargon, and university presidents punish Jewish students for protecting themselves against hateful mobs.

It’s difficult to gauge the temperature of the next anti-Semitic flare-up, but one thing is clear: during the recent war in Gaza, anti-Semitism surged in Britain, Greece, the United States, Canada, Venezuela, Argentina and many other countries.

Holocaust analogies were used against Israel, and political cartoonists everywhere were quite comfortable comparing then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert to Hitler. Jews were beaten up in Russia, and skinheads in places such as Belgrade thought nothing of threatening and pounding the crap out of our brothers and sisters.

Will the above hypothetical scenario happen? Will anti-Semitism soar while Israel and the Jewish world are under siege?  

Is it possible that something less, perhaps more civil, will engulf the world and all 194 countries will recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and the need to legislate against anti-Semitic actions?

It would be nice, but not likely. Not yet.

A brute is strategizing and preparing to knock us on our face. When the brute makes its move, Israel will defend itself. As soon as it does, malicious and nasty anti-Semitic men and women will try to intimidate and terrorize us.  

So why aren’t our leaders planning to create the largest, well-staffed, volunteer-based organization ever to protect our children and secure our future as Jews? What’s happening in our organizational offices and neighbourhood homes to ensure that you and I play a role in a strategy to fight back?  

Nothing, once again?  

Call your rabbis and community leaders and demand that they begin planning for a worldwide entity that will prepare us for “Esau’s visit” and that they embrace those non-Jews who want to stand next to us and wrestle hatred everywhere.

If you’ve ever attended a Holocaust education lecture, travelled on Birthright Israel or March of the Living, remember what you learned. Anti-Semitism can be fought. Just ask the Danish people.

Come on! Enough with the lectures and books. It’s time, once again.

_________________________________________________________________________

Avrum’s Comment: Oh, damn, they must have forgotten this. Whoops!

Iran: the last executioner of children

See this Amnesty Link: www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/iran/page.do?id=1011172

Iran is one of the only countries left in the world today that still executes children and child offenders (those accused of committing an offense when they were under 18 years of age).  At least 130 juvenile offenders face execution, but the total number could be much higher as many death penalty cases in Iran are believed to go unreported.  At least eight child offenders were executed in 2007. Iran is the only country in the world known to have executed a juvenile offender in 2008. At least seven juvenile offenders have been executed in 2008. The last known execution, of Gholamreza H.,  took place on 29 October 2008.  Behnam Zare was executed on 26 August 2008. He was only 15 at the time the alleged crime took place.

Call to Action: Involve yourself in fighting human rights atrocities in Iran. The number of youth, children and mentally ill executed in this country is astounding  (see link below).  Iran is a country with some very fine people; it’s leadership however is barbaric. If you think this is hyperbole do some blogging. While you do your research, remember that Iran is at the forefront of co-ordinating Durban 2, and its ‘leadership’ will be speaking at this ‘human rights conference’.

Idea: Start a human rights committee among your friends. Determine a country you want to help. Iran is a good place to direct your efforts. Amnesty International has shown letter writing is very affective.

We live in a free country in a most beautiful time and can express ourselves as we see fit. We therefore have the responsibility to speak loudly on behalf of those who don’t.

For More Information see ‘Iran Human Rights’ website  www.iranhr.net/spip.php?article634

Keep an eye on the goings-on by bookmarking and reviewing the following link, a homepage called EYE ON THE U.N. , a project of The Hudson Institute of New York and the Touro College Institute for Human Rights.

http://www.eyeontheun.org/durban.asp

Here is the Durban II agenda.

• Undermining the West and democracy
• Promoting anti-semitism
• Demonizing Israel as racist
• Foiling efforts to combat radical Islamic terrorism
• Manufacturing Islamophobia everywhere
• Fomenting religious extremism
• Curbing free expression

It’s difficult because this is what it looks like:  countries such as Iran, Libya and Cuba, with dismal human rights records, came together to create a United Nations conference on human rights.  Human rights!? What?

So explain that. Iran, Libya and Cuba?

Iran cuts children’s hands off for stealing. Libya was charged with accessory to terrorism and the downing of a monster jet full of people. Cuba is a closed nation criticized for years for locking their citizens in and controlling their society through fear.

And here is the kicker…Durban II will be voting on Israel. Do I need go any further? Libya, Iran, Cuba on Israel — hmm! Let’s think for a minute.

Will this triumverate of monsters band together with other countries too weak or indifferent to stay home (other than my beloved Canada and United States) and praise Israel for the democracy and civility it has brought to the region?

Will they be recognizing the endless streams of human rights organizations that exist in Israel and the openness of the country enough so that constant reporting and transparency is inevitable and required?

No, no I don’t think so.

Durban II, in Geneva between April 20 – 24, will  smear Israel’s name to the ground. It will refer to it as an Apartheid state, a pariah nation and vote on everything short of calling for its destruction.

Further, and this is the kicker which everyone should care about (even if you don’t really care for Israel), Durban II will present a resolution calling for ’criticism levied against a religion to be illegal’.

WHAT!? That’s right.

Those countries run by thieves and utter cruel fools do not want you to speak against their religion or anyone else’s to the extent that it would be against the law. Obviously they cannot determine the laws of any land, except their own, but shouldn’t we be wary of such a vote at the United Nations?

Isn’t this where very dangerous precedents are set…those that leak into the public at large?

And finally, those who are co-ordinating this ’conference’ and giving very little time for debate during the preparatory time, would like the United Nations to take what is voted on at Durban II and spread the results throughout the workings of the United Nations.

Durban II is so difficult to understand because it is real. I don’t know what to say when I look at something which is so upside down it’s comparable to giving the sheriff’s badge to Charles Manson to run the town. Seriously.

If you think I’m being inappropriate ask yourself what you cherish about human rights, and I’ll guess one of those things is having the ability to dump on the syngagogue, church or mosque if you want to, when they deserve it. But Durban II wants to take that away from us.

Israel, religion etc. etc. etc. Keep an eye out for the goings on at Durban II. It is the strangest gathering since Durban I – a whole other blog entry (but suffice it to say it was a few days of ongoing Israel bashing in 2001).

Keep Durban II in your radar.  It is so bizarre in years to come people will say it was a myth. But the thing is, it’s not.

http://blog.unwatch.org/

__________________________________________________________________________

This was Durban 1 (scroll down):

Zionism was condemned outright as the contemporary form of Nazism and apartheid, but so was “white viciousness”, which had caused “one Holocaust after the other in Africa” through human trafficking, slavery and colonialism. Israel should disappear, its politicians should be brought before an international tribunal similar to the one in Nuremberg. Anti-Semitic cartoons were circulated, copies of “Mein Kampf” and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were handed out. Beneath a photo of Hitler were the words that Israel would never have existed and the Palestinians would never have had to spill their blood if he had been victorious. A number of delegates were physically threatened, there were calls of “Death to Jews”. This farce came to a head when the Sudanese Minister of Justice, Ali Mohamed Osman Yasin, demanded reparations for historical slavery, while in his own country, people were being shamelessly thrown into slavery as he spoke. It was like a cannibal suddenly calling for vegetarianism. http://www.signandsight.com/features/1710.html

StandWithUs, an international education organization will be “Tweeting” – i.e. sending short updates via Twitter.com – about the happenings of the Durban 2 conference, LIVE, from April 20th-24th. Those interested in following these posts on Twitter, or responding to StandWithUs staff, can follow at: http://twitter.com/StandWithUs.

Additionally, StandWithUs will be “tweeting” at the Rally it organized against the Durban 2 conference on Monday April 20th at New York’s Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, across from the United Nations at 12pm. Congressman Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of the New York Board of Rabbis, Curtis Sliwa, the Founder of Guardian Angels, and thousands of others are expected to attend.

StandWithUs, an international, non-profit Israel education organization, hosts speakers and conferences, offers website resources and creates brochures and materials about Israel that are distributed globally. Based in Los Angeles, the organization has offices across the U.S. and in Israel and the UK.  SWU was founded in 2001 in response to the public’s need and desire for mainstream information about the Arab-Israeli conflict. StandWithUsCampus helps college students challenge anti-Israel bias. http://www.standwithus.com and http ://www.standwithuscampus.com and http://www.standwithus.co.il

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There are three words that summarize what we saw in the Jewish community. The first word is fear.

http://www.newmajority.com/ShowScroll.aspx?ID=5d9bc9a8-2c8b-472b-a7f9-07a32eeaa08e

Action: 

Call your local Jewish Federation and find out what they are doing for the Jews of Venezuela.

Call your local Israel office and determine the same thing.

Do your own investigation by googling ’Jews of Venezuela’ and be in touch with the community. Ask them what you can do.

Start up your own Venezuelan Jewish Community committe amongst your friends and family. Create a ‘pen pal’ relationship with the community there. Make them feel safer knowing we are aware of their plight. Find out what they need, what they want, and then set about nudging your Jewish and non-Jewish leadership to get it for them.

A Wall in Venezuelan Synagogue Defaced by 'Vandals'

 

 

 

 

Action: Please read this and comment on what the Jewish world can do to help and protect the Jews of Venezuela while anti-Semitism is institutionalized in that South Americancountry. 

Offer your words of support and I will forward them to the community. Now is the time to stand next to Jews everywhere!!

 
“Emerging Trends in Anti-Semitism and Campus Discourse”
March 8th and 9th 2009, University of Toronto
www.caficonference.com

The Canadian Academic Friends of Israel (CAFI), in partnership with the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto, is proud to present a two-day conference entitled: “Emerging Trends in Anti-Semitism and Campus Discourse.” The conference will take place on March 8-9, 2009 at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, 1 Devonshire Place.  
 
In the wake of the Gaza War, Canadian students and faculty have witnessed increasingly virulent attacks against Israel, including boycott resolutions, and intimidating statements of condemnation.
 
Scholars are attending the conference from Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Israel.  The program will explore modern anti-Semitism, its effect on campuses and will feature workshops on building Canada-Israel academic bonds.  
 
The opening keynote address will be delivered by The Hon. Irwin Cotler.
 

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For More Information:
Dylan Hanley, Program Manager, Canadian Academic Friends of Israel
Office: 416.925.7499 Ext. 242
Mobile: 416.320.0365
Fax: 416.925.3531
dhanley@CAFIsrael.com
www.CAFIsrael.com