So many its hard to count this week. Here are just a few:
New York City’s Mayor De Blasio is still targeting Jewish communities and criminalizing their gatherings not just for worship but for weddings and funerals—all the while store fronts and streets are inundated with crime, vandalism, and human contamination during so-called peaceful protests that are allowed unabated.
In Delaware in late August, the Chabad house at the University of Delaware was vandalized by arson. While the investigation ruled it was arson, it is still pending as a hate crime or just a crime—which boggles my mind. However, I have to give it to the community members of the Blue Hen Chabad house. They are fundraising to build a bigger, better house! Talk about making lemonade out of lemons!
In Los Angeles in August, a city in which church groups are rounded up even when they have service in their parking lots, a series of hateful antisemitic banners are cropping up on freeway overpasses. Jewish advocacy groups are working with highway patrol to ensure the hate speech is curtailed and banners removed. I hope the banner owners are found and fined with graffiti, at the very least.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law last Monday to require an ethnic-studies course requirement for matriculation from California State University (CSU), starting with the 2021-22 school year.
Spearheaded by the AMCHA Initiative, 90 education, civil-rights and religious groups had called on Newsom to veto the bill, AB-1460, because the course required is extremely biased. But instead, he passed it: This bill basically mandates that students complete an ethnic studies course in order to graduate, But the problem is that currently most ethnic studies courses are bias and agenda-driven indoctrinations critical of Israel and lack academic honesty. They are written and administered by faculty already hostile to Israel.
The problem with the bill, those against have noted, is there is an important distinction between the broad field of ethnic studies—with its goal of understanding and celebrating the contributions of the state and country’s diversity—and the narrow field of “Critical Ethnic Studies” referenced in the AB-1460 Bill.
This bill is dangerous because anti-Zionist advocacy and the promotion of BDS are an intrinsic part of critical ethnic studies; critical ethnic-studies faculty have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to promote BDS and anti-Zionist advocacy in their academic programming and classrooms; and faculty support and promotion of BDS are linked to the harassment of Jewish students.
And now, until further notice, this class is mandatory for a California University student to get his or her degree.
In Florida, Laura Loomer, 27-year-old Jewish investigative journalist and activist has been banned by Twitter because she called Ilhan Omar “Anti-Jewish.” Loomer has been banned by most platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, PayPal, Venmo, GoFundMe, Medium, and TeeSpring. Chase Bank even shut down her access to online banking.
Some of the people Loomer has confronted on camera include Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Maxine Waters, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Linda Sarsour, and Keith Ellison.
Ms. Loomer is not one to cave or quit, though. She just won the Republican Party primary in Florida’s 21st Congressional District, the home district of President Donald Trump. She will now face Democratic incumbent Lois Frankel in November. Loomer’s opponent, Democrat Lois Frankel, was one of 115 congress members to send a letter last June to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, voicing their opposition to the possible application of Israeli sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria.
What is unique about this race in Florida is for “the first time in U.S. history where a Republican Jewish woman goes up against a Democrat Jewish women” (Loomer).
So while Ms. Loomer has been censored and banned from so many outlets, her message seems to be resonating. She got a personal congrats from President Donald Trump on her accomplishment thus far.
I don’t know her full platform, but if you live in Florida’s 21st district you need to be keen on this race.
Eventually the truth bubbles up and the cream rises to the top.
Shavua Tov, have a great week