The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump is set to inherit an uncommon number of vacancies in the federal courts in addition to the open Supreme Court seat, giving the president-elect a monumental opportunity to reshape the judiciary after taking office.
The estimated 103 judicial vacancies that President Obama is expected to hand over to Trump in the Jan. 20 transition of power is nearly double the 54 openings Obama found eight years ago following George W. Bush’s presidency.
Confirmation of Obama’s judicial nominees slowed to a crawl after Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015. Obama White House officials blame Senate Republicans for what they characterize as an unprecedented level of obstruction in blocking the Democratic president’s court picks.
The result is a multitude of openings throughout the federal circuit and district courts that will allow the new Republican president to quickly make a wide array of lifetime appointments.
State gun control laws, abortion restrictions, voter laws, anti-discrimination measures and immigrant issues are all matters that are increasingly heard by federal judges and will be influenced by the new composition of the courts. Trump has vowed to choose ideologues in the mold of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon — a prospect that has activists on the right giddy. [Continue reading…]
Trump plans to dissolve his foundation; N.Y. attorney general pushes back
NPR reports: President-elect Donald Trump plans to dissolve his foundation, his transition team announced on in statement on Saturday.
Soon after, though, the New York attorney general’s spokesperson tweeted that he legally can’t, until the state’s investigation of the Trump Foundation is complete.
.@Fahrenthold @realDonaldTrump Foundation still under investigation by @AGSchneiderman, cannot legally dissolve until investigation complete
— Amy Spitalnick (@amyspitalnick) December 24, 2016
Press Secretary Amy Spitalnick was responding to Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold, who asked if the investigation would continue. [Continue reading…]
The Jews begging to join the alt-right
James Kirchick writes: “I refuse to join any club that will have me as a member,” Groucho Marx famously said.
“We insist on joining the club that refuses to have us as members” might as well be the mantra of some aspiring Jewish adherents of the racist “alt-right.”
A nebulous collective of internet trolls, neoreactionaries, and outright white supremacists, the alt-right has drawn widespread fascination in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, which it helped propel. Contemptuous of mainstream conservativism and explicitly embracing white identity politics, alt-righters are in many ways the mirror image of the racial minority and “woke” liberal activists they gleefully antagonize. This likeness is implicitly acknowledged by the alt-right’s use of the term “identitarian,” a designation that seeks to politicize whiteness.
Needless to say, these guys aren’t exactly fans of the Jews. One of alt-right’s leading voices, Kevin MacDonald, has written entire books positing that Judaism is a “group evolutionary strategy” aimed at undermining white, Christian civilization.
But none of this seems to faze denizens of “The Jewish Alternative,” a newly launched website and podcast purporting to represent “The Voice of Dissident Jewry.” The alt-right, they say, is the only force willing to protect western civilization — and, by implication, Jews — from the hordes of Muslims, Black Lives Matter activists, and campus totalitarians trying to destroy it. [Continue reading…]
Is America about to come under the rule of a ‘new king’?
BuzzFeed reports: On Sunday, Republican National Committee chairman (and incoming White House chief of staff) Reince Priebus released a message to celebrate Christmas.
You can read the full statement here, but there’s one part that has left a lot of people scratching their heads:
Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King.
The combination of the words “this Christmas” and “a new King” had people wondering whether the GOP was comparing Donald Trump to, well, Jesus.[Continue reading…]
The most defining moments in America, as ranked by each generation
Quartz reports: Historic events come to define our national identity. But do we all agree on what’s important?
Pew asked 2,025 Americans from each generation to name the 10 events in their lifetime with “the greatest impact” on the country. The answers reveal a world newly redefined by the rise of domestic and foreign terrorism, and the transformative role of technology and civil rights.
Everyone agreed on one thing. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, stood out as the most important event, cutting across age, race, and political party. Roughly three-quarters (76%) of all respondents included the terror attacks in their top 10, and the events of that day were seen as the most defining overall for each generation, even ranking ahead of World War II for the Silent Generation (born between 1901 and 1927). The next closest contender was Barack Obama’s election to the White House, which 40% of the public named as one of their top events. (It shared the top spot among the survey’s black respondents.) [Continue reading…]
Music: Jaga Jazzist — ‘Going Down’
There is nothing inevitable about the rise of hatred
Brendan Cox, who's wife was murdered earlier this year, gives an extraordinary and inspiring message of hope, unity and love. pic.twitter.com/qDEUtWPHRf
— Channel 4 (@Channel4) December 25, 2016
Pope Francis’ message of peace to the world
In his Christmas message to the City of Rome and to the world, Pope Francis says: Today this message goes out to the ends of the earth to reach all peoples, especially those scarred by war and harsh conflicts that seem stronger than the yearning for peace.
Peace to men and women in the war-torn land of Syria, where far too much blood has been spilled. Above all in the city of Aleppo, site of the most awful battles in recent weeks, it is most urgent that assistance and support be guaranteed to the exhausted civil populace, with respect for humanitarian law. It is time for weapons to be still forever, and the international community to actively seek a negotiated solution, so that civil coexistence can be restored in the country.
Peace to women and men of the beloved Holy Land, the land chosen and favoured by God. May Israelis and Palestinians have the courage and the determination to write a new page of history, where hate and revenge give way to the will to build together a future of mutual understanding and harmony. May Iraq, Libya and Yemen – where their peoples suffer war and the brutality of terrorism – be able once again to find unity and concord.
Peace to the men and women in various parts of Africa, especially in Nigeria, where fundamentalist terrorism exploits even children in order to perpetrate horror and death. Peace in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so that divisions may be healed and all people of good will may strive to undertake the path of development and sharing, preferring the culture of dialogue to the mindset of conflict.
Peace to women and men who to this day suffer the consequences of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine, where there is urgent need for a common desire to bring relief to the civil population and to put into practice the commitments which have been assumed.
We implore harmony for the dear people of Colombia, which seeks to embark on a new and courageous path of dialogue and reconciliation. May such courage also motivate the beloved country of Venezuela to undertake the necessary steps to put an end to current tensions, and build together a future of hope for the whole population.
Peace to all who, in different areas, are enduring sufferings due to constant dangers and persistent injustice. May Myanmar consolidate its efforts to promote peaceful coexistence and, with the assistance of the international community, provide necessary protection and humanitarian assistance to all those who gravely and urgently need it. May the Korean peninsula see the tensions it is experiencing overcome in a renewed spirit of cooperation.
Peace to those who have lost a person dear to them as a result of brutal acts of terrorism, and to those who have sown fear and death into the hearts of so many countries and cities.
Peace – not merely the word, but a real and concrete peace – to our abandoned and excluded brothers and sisters, to those who suffer hunger and to all the victims of violence. Peace to exiles, migrants and refugees, to all those who in our day are subject to human trafficking. Peace to the peoples who suffer because of the economic ambitions of the few, because of the sheer greed and the idolatry of money, which leads to slavery. Peace to those affected by social and economic unrest, and to those who endure the consequences of earthquakes or other natural catastrophes.
Peace to the children, on this special day on which God became a child, above all those deprived of the joys of childhood because of hunger, wars or the selfishness of adults.
Peace on earth to men and women of goodwill, who work quietly and patiently each day, in their families and in society, to build a more humane and just world, sustained by the conviction that only with peace is there the possibility of a more prosperous future for all. [Continue reading…]
UN resolution on Israeli settlements is a Christmas gift to the world
Gideon Levy writes: On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to establish a Jewish state (alongside an Arab state) in the Land of Israel. Sixty-nine years later, on December 23, 2016, the UN Security Council voted to try to save it. Resolution 2334 that was approved Friday is a gust of good news, a breath of hope in the sea of darkness and despair of recent years.
Just when it seemed that everything was going downhill – the deepening occupation increasingly supported by America, with Europe galloping to the right – along came a Hanukkah resolution that lights a thin candle. When it seemed that the evil ones would remain victorious, along came New Zealand and three other countries and gave the world a Christmas gift.
So thanks to New Zealand, Venezuela and Malaysia. True, the Christmas tree they’ve supplied, with all its sparkling lights, will soon be removed; Donald Trump is already waiting at the gate. But the imprint will remain. Until then, this temporary rejoicing is a joy, despite the expected hangover.
We of course must ask U.S. President Barack Obama in fury: Now you’re doing something? And we must ask the world in frustration: What about actions? But it’s impossible to ignore the Security Council decision that rules that all the settlements are illegal by nature.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can call back his ambassadors, while his right-hand minister Yuval Steinitz can shriek that the resolution is “unfair.” (He has a sense of humor.) And opposition leader Isaac Herzog can babble that “we need to fight the decision with all means.” But there isn’t a person in the world with a conscience who won’t rejoice over the resolution.
There also isn’t a decent Israeli who must fall for the propaganda that calls the resolution “anti-Israeli,” a definition that the Israeli media rushed to adopt – with its characteristic slavishness, of course.
This decision has brought Israel back to the solid ground of reality. All the settlements, including in the territories that have been annexed, including in East Jerusalem of course, are a violation of international law. In other words, they are a crime. No country in the world thinks otherwise. The entire world thinks so – all Israel’s so-called friends and all its so-called enemies – unanimously.
Most probably the tools of brainwashing in Israel, along with the mechanisms of repression and denial, will try to undermine the decision. But when the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia unite in such a clear statement, this will be difficult work.
So you can say “the entire world is against us.” You can scream “anti-Semitism!” You can ask “What about Syria?” In the end this clear-as-crystal truth will remain: The world thinks that the settlements are a crime. All the settlements and all the world.
True, the world doesn’t lift a finger to have the settlements removed, but maybe one day this will happen. Still, it will be too late by then, too late.
Resolution 2334 artificially distinguishes between Israel and the settlements in that it is aimed at the settlements, not the occupation. As if the guilt of Amona were on its settlers and not all Israelis. This deception proves how much the world continues to treat Israel with leniency and hesitates to takes steps against it, as it did with Russia’s conquest of Crimea, for example.
But Israelis who don’t live in Amona, who have never been there, who have no real interest in its fate – it seems most Israelis – have to ask themselves: Is it really worth it? All this for a few settlers they don’t know and don’t really want to know?
Resolution 2334 is meant above all for Israeli ears, like an alarm clock that makes sure to wake you up on time, like a siren that tells you to go down to the bomb shelter. True, the resolution has no concrete value; true, the new U.S. administration promises to erase it.But two questions won’t let up: Why don’t the Palestinians deserve exactly the same thing that Israelis deserve, and how much can one country, with all its lobbying power, weapons and high-tech, ignore the entire world? On this first day of both Hanukkah and Christmas, we can enjoy, if only for a moment, the sweet illusion that Resolution 2334 will rouse these questions in Israel.
Pope Francis is waging a war on Christmas. Christians should join him
Christopher Hale writes: Last week, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly had good news for his viewers — the war on Christmas had finally ended. “We won!” O’Reilly declared.
What were O’Reilly’s metrics for measuring this great victory over the secularists who he saw as so hell-bent on ruining Christianity’s great feast? Simple: The number of stores using “Merry Christmas!” instead of “Happy Holidays!” has increased in the past decade.
But as O’Reilly noted, there are still some companies out there who won’t oblige with the victor’s demands that Christmas greetings be done the right way. Don’t worry, O’Reilly assured his viewers, there’s a new president in town, “and that’s bad news for them, because Donald Trump is on the case.”
In one sense, O’Reilly is absolutely right. The president-elect has made renewed Christian strength in the public sphere a key underpinning to his shocking victory. Trump told us time and again that when he’s president, Christianity will have power again in the United States. “Christians don’t use their power,” Trump has complained. “We have to strengthen. Because we are getting — if you look, it’s death by a million cuts — we are getting less and less and less powerful in terms of a religion, and in terms of a force.”
In typical Trump fashion, he thinks this starts in the marketplace: “I’ll tell you one thing: I get elected president, we’re going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas’ [at department stores] again.” He continued, “Because if I’m there, you’re going to have plenty of power. You don’t need anybody else. You’re going to have somebody representing you very, very well. Remember that.”
Unfortunately for O’Reilly and Trump, there’s still one person they must defeat in this self-perpetuating war on Christmas. It’s Pope Francis, the 80-year-old leader of 1.2 billion Catholics across the globe.
“Christmas is a charade!” Francis said last year.
These aren’t exactly words you would expect from a Christian during the holiday season, much less the pope. But that’s exactly what the troublemaker Pope Francis told a group of us gathered for Mass in 2015. “Christmas is approaching: There will be lights, parties, lighted Christmas trees and manger scenes. … It’s all a charade.”
Why would the pope wage war on Christmas? “The world continues to go to war. The world has not chosen a peaceful path. There are wars today everywhere, and hate,” Francis said. “We should ask for the grace to weep for this world, which does not recognize the path to peace. To weep for those who live for war and have the cynicism to deny it. God weeps; Jesus weeps.”
In other words, the meaning of Christmas isn’t strength and visibility in the public sphere. The central claim of this holiday has always been that the rejected, crucified and executed Jesus Christ is still somehow Lord of the entire earth. In Trump’s world, those like Jesus Christ are the losers. In God’s world, these are the victors. [Continue reading…]
In reaction to fake news, Pakistani minister directs nuclear threat at Israel
The New York Times reports: A fake news article led to gunfire at a Washington pizzeria three weeks ago. Now it seems that another fake news story has prompted the defense minister of Pakistan to threaten to go nuclear.
The defense minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, wrote a saber-rattling Twitter post directed at Israel on Friday after a false report — which the minister apparently believed — that Israel had threatened Pakistan with nuclear weapons. Both countries have nuclear arsenals.
“Israeli def min threatens nuclear retaliation presuming pak role in Syria against Daesh,” the minister wrote on his official Twitter account, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Israel forgets Pakistan is a Nuclear state too.”
Israeli def min threatens nuclear retaliation presuming pak role in Syria against Daesh.Israel forgets Pakistan is a Nuclear state too AH
— Khawaja M. Asif (@KhawajaMAsif) December 23, 2016
Mr. Asif appeared to be reacting to a fake news article published on awdnews.com.That story, with the typo-laden headline “Israeli Defense Minister: If Pakistan send ground troops to Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack,” appeared on the website on Dec. 20, alongside articles with headlines like “Clinton is staging a military coup against Trump.” [Continue reading…]
The chaos theory of Donald Trump: Sowing confusion through tweets
The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump’s sudden embrace this week of a nuclear arms race — and his staff’s scramble to minimize the fallout — underscored an emerging modus operandi for the president-elect: governance by chaos.
Since winning the election, Trump has seemed to revel in tossing firecrackers in all directions, often using Twitter to offer brief but provocative pronouncements on foreign and domestic policies alike — and leaving it to others to flesh out his true intentions.
In the past week alone, Trump has publicly pitted two military contractors against each other, sowed confusion about the scope of his proposed ban on foreign Muslims, and needled China after its seizure of a U.S. underwater drone.
But nothing has created more consternation for many foreign policy experts than Trump’s assertion Thursday on Twitter that the country should “greatly strengthen and expand” its nuclear capability. [Continue reading…]
Aung San Suu Kyi fails to calm Myanmar’s ethnic violence
The Economist reports: Syed, a 33-year-old Muslim religious teacher, feared the worst. On October 9th Rohingya militants attacked border posts near Maungdaw, a township in the north of Rakhine state in western Myanmar, killing nine Burmese border guards. Syed, himself a Rohingya from Rakhine, was sure that a vicious crackdown by Myanmar’s army would follow. So he put on non-religious clothes and shaved his beard. Along with 16 others he left his home village. For days the group hid in a forest. Eventually they crossed the Naf River, which separates Myanmar from Bangladesh, and found their way to the sprawling, ramshackle Kutupalong camp near the coastal town of Cox’s Bazar.
Syed’s fears were justified. Myanmar’s army has blocked access to much of Maungdaw, keeping away journalists, aid workers and international monitors (troops claim to be searching for stolen guns and ammunition). But reports have emerged of mass arrests, torture, the burning of villages, killings of civilians and the systematic rape of Rohingya women by Burmese soldiers. At least 86 people have been killed. Satellite imagery analysed by Human Rights Watch suggests that soldiers have burned at least 1,500 buildings — including homes, food shops, markets and mosques (one devastated area is pictured). The organisation says this could be a conservative estimate; it includes only buildings not obscured by trees. Amnesty International says the army’s “callous and systematic campaign of violence” may be a crime against humanity. Myanmar’s government denies all such allegations, dismissing many of them as fabrications.
Around 27,000 Rohingyas — members of a Muslim ethnic group native to Rakhine — have recently, like Syed, fled to Bangladesh. But about 1m of them remain. Before the recent turmoil, tens of thousands of Rohingyas in northern Rakhine relied on aid for food, water and health care. The blockade has severed that lifeline.
Such brutality does not reflect well on Aung San Suu Kyi, a winner of the Nobel peace prize who has led Myanmar since her party’s resounding electoral victory in 2015. Neither does ethnic conflict, which has been intensifying on the other side of the country, speak well of her skills as a peacemaker. She entered office saying her priority was to resolve Myanmar’s decades-long civil wars. [Continue reading…]
The long and brutal history of fake news
Jacob Soll writes: The fake news hit Trent, Italy, on Easter Sunday, 1475. A 2 ½-year-old child named Simonino had gone missing, and a Franciscan preacher, Bernardino da Feltre, gave a series of sermons claiming that the Jewish community had murdered the child, drained his blood and drunk it to celebrate Passover. The rumors spread fast. Before long da Feltre was claiming that the boy’s body had been found in the basement of a Jewish house. In response, the Prince-Bishop of Trent Johannes IV Hinderbach immediately ordered the city’s entire Jewish community arrested and tortured. Fifteen of them were found guilty and burned at the stake. The story inspired surrounding communities to commit similar atrocities.
Recognizing a false story, the papacy intervened and attempted to stop both the story and the murders. But Hinderbach refused to meet the papal legate, and feeling threatened, simply spread more fake news stories about Jews drinking the blood of Christian children. In the end, the popular fervor supporting these anti-semitic “blood libel” stories made it impossible for the papacy to interfere with Hinderbach, who had Simonino canonized — Saint Simon — and attributed to him a hundred miracles. Today, historians have catalogued the fake stories of child-murdering, blood-drinking Jews, which have existed since the 12th century as part of the foundation of anti-Semitism. And yet, one anti-Semitic website still claims the story is true and Simon is still a martyred saint. Some fake news never dies.
Over the past few months, “fake news” has been on the loose once again. From bogus stories about Hillary Clinton’s imminent indictment to myths about a postal worker in Ohio destroying absentee ballots cast for Donald Trump, colorful and damaging tales have begun to circulate rapidly and widely on Twitter and Facebook. In some cases they have had violent results: Earlier this month a man armed with an AR-15 fired a shot inside a Washington, D.C., restaurant, claiming to be investigating (fake) reports that Clinton aide John Podesta was heading up a child abuse ring there.
But amid all the media handwringing about fake news and how to deal with it, one fact seems to have gotten lost: Fake news is not a new phenomenon. It has been around since news became a concept 500 years ago with the invention of print — a lot longer, in fact, than verified, “objective” news, which emerged in force a little more than a century ago. From the start, fake news has tended to be sensationalist and extreme, designed to inflame passions and prejudices. And it has often provoked violence. The Nazi propaganda machine relied on the same sorts of fake stories about ritual Jewish drinking of childrens’ blood that inspired Prince-Bishop Hinderbach in the 15th century. Perhaps most dangerous is how terrifyingly persistent and powerful fake news has proved to be. As Pope Sixtus IV found out, wild fake stories with roots in popular prejudice often prove too much for responsible authorities to handle. With the decline of trusted news establishments around the country, who’s to stop them today? [Continue reading…]
Drugs and terror: Berlin truck-attack suspect followed familiar pattern
The Wall Street Journal reports: The 24-year-old Tunisian migrant suspected of killing 12 people in an attack in Berlin this week typified a new wave of young jihadists in Europe who mix drug dealing and other illegal activities with Islamist terror.
Anis Amri, who was killed in a shootout with Italian police in Milan on Friday after days on the run, peddled cocaine in a hip neighborhood of the German capital, while becoming increasingly radicalized and declaring his allegiance to Islamic State.
It is a pattern that has become increasingly common. Two brothers involved in the November 2015 attacks in Paris sold hashish from a bar in the Belgian capital, Brussels. One — Salah Abdeslam, the main surviving suspect in that assault — served time in prison for breaking into a garage. The other had repeated brushes with the law for theft, drugs and weapons possession.
“You have a crossover between criminals and extremists,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a counterterrorism expert at the Swedish Defence University. “They are just as at ease with selling drugs, petty crime and dabbling in extremism.” [Continue reading…]
Trump’s Syria conundrum
Kim Ghattas writes: President-elect Donald Trump’s position on the conflict in Syria has been a confusing assortment of positions, the latest of which – his call for a safe zone in Syria – seems informed by his most recent conversations with candidates he interviewed for the position of secretary of state.
But all of his statements carry within them an inherent conundrum, two contradictory perspectives that will be hard to reconcile in Syria: his stated desire to work with Russia, or at least please Vladimir Putin, and his expected efforts to contain Iran.
Beyond the question of whether Trump will try to rip up the nuclear deal there is also the issue of Iran’s ascendant power in the region.Trump made no secret of his admiration for Russia’s president during the US presidential campaign, and his willingness to deal with Vladimir Putin.
But Trump’s appointments of Lt Gen Michael Flynn as national security advisor, James Mattis as secretary of defence and Mike Pompeo as CIA chief, form a trio that looks geared for a fight with Iran. Tehran has played a pivotal role in Syria to keep Bashar al-Assad in power and crush the rebels in Aleppo. [Continue reading…]
UN again allowing Assad regime to edit Syria aid document
The Daily Beast reports: The Syrian government is once again trying to manipulate the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) to fit its own narrative of the conflict within the country.
In comments that seem removed from the reality of the years-long war in the country, the government has requested the word “conflict” be removed from the document, and replaced with “crisis.” It has also requested the removal of the word “besieged.”
The U.N. itself reports that 974,080 people are besieged in 16 locations across Syria, with 4.5 million classed as hard-to-reach, a number that is considered low by other NGOs and advocacy organizations working in the country. With the evacuation of east Aleppo, that number will fall to around 700,000 in 15 areas. The majority are besieged by government forces and their allies.
The HRP plan is the overarching planning document that ties together the aid response across the country, including the billions of dollars per year in funding, including in areas outside the government’s control.
Last year the U.N. faced extensive criticism for failing to adequately consult U.N. hubs and NGOs operating outside Damascus, and for allowing the government of Syria to edit the document before its release. In editing, it included comments similar to those of this year — removing any mention of “besieged areas” and watering down references to violence against civilians. The U.N. allowed the changes. [Continue reading…]
Liberal Zionism in the age of Trump
Omri Boehm writes: For weeks now, Jewish communities across America have been troubled by an awkward phenomenon. Donald J. Trump, a ruthless politician trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes, has been elected to become the next president, and he has appointed as his chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, a prominent figure of the “alt-right,” a movement that promotes white nationalism, anti-Semitism, racism and misogyny. Though Bannon himself has expressed “zero tolerance” for such views, his past actions suggest otherwise; as the executive chairman of Breitbart News for the past four years, he provided the country’s most powerful media platform for the movement and its ideologies.
Still, neither the United States’ most powerful Jewish organizations nor Israeli leaders have taken a clear stance against the appointment. In fact, they have embraced it.
Immediately after Trump appointed Bannon, the Zionist Organization of America prepared to welcome him at its annual gala dinner, where he was to meet Naftali Bennett, Israel’s minister of education, and Danny Danon, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations. (Bannon didn’t show up.) Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador in Washington, publicly announced that he was looking forward to working with the entire Trump administration, including Bannon. And Alan Dershowitz, the outspoken Harvard emeritus professor of law who regularly denounces non-Zionists as anti-Semitic, preferred in this case to turn not against Bannon, but against his critics. “It is not legitimate to call somebody an anti-Semite because you might disagree with their politics,” he pointed out.
The alliance that’s beginning to form between Zionist leadership and politicians with anti-Semitic tendencies has the power to transform Jewish-American consciousness for years to come. In the last few decades, many of America’s Jewish communities have grown accustomed to living in a political contradiction. On one hand, a large majority of these communities could rightly take pride in a powerful liberal tradition, stretching back to such models as Louis Brandeis — a defender of social justice and the first Jew to become a Supreme Court justice — or Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who marched in Selma alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On the other hand, the same communities have often identified themselves with Zionism, a political agenda rooted in the denial of liberal politics. [Continue reading…]
