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"Within 5 years there will be as many Palestinians as Jews in Mandatory palestine. In 20 years there will be 600 million Muslims around Israel"
"Demographics are working against Israel, therefore it is in Israel's interest to make a dignified solution with the palestinians now."
Door: Dirk Jacob Nieuwboer
Gepubliceerd: donderdag 19 november 2009 00:58
Update: donderdag 19 november 2009 01:50
Sommige Joden voelen zich aangetrokken tot de ideeën van Geert Wilders. Het Joods Marokkaanse Netwerk vindt het daarom tijd voor actie.
‘Wilders drijft wig tussen Joden en Moslims’, staat er op de uitnodiging. De grote letters verraden nog niet meteen de aanleiding voor het debat. Maar bij navraag blijkt het snel: er is onrust over de Joden die openlijk hebben gezegd dat ze PVV willen stemmen.
‘Godzijdank is het maar een kleine minderheid’, zucht Hadassa Hirschfeld. Het aantal Joden dat achter Wilders aanloopt, is volgens haar zeer beperkt. Maar toch gaat het Joods Marokkaans Netwerk Amsterdam (JMNA), waar ze bestuurslid van is, er vanavond over debatteren.
Vorige week liet Mohamed Rabbae al merken dat de Marokkanen in het netwerk zich zorgen maken. ‘We moeten snel met elkaar gaan debatteren om te voorkomen dat dit weer escaleert’, zei hij in Trouw. ‘De Marokkaanse deelnemers vinden het onbegrijpelijk dat er aan de andere kant steun voor Wilders is.’
[Click here to read the entire article.]
I have already covered Wilders' US tours in:Alain Soral (born 2 October 1958) is a French sociologist, essayist, and film maker, as well as being the author of several polemical essays. He is the brother of the actress Agnès Soral. Soral lives in the French Basque Country. Since June 2004, he has been a boxing coach. Alain Soral considers himself to be in the political "avant garde" of French society, claiming that his remarks and comments are always at first condemned and later widely accepted by the mainstream French public.[1]In [E&R] Questions à Alain Soral, Soral responds to the following question:
Présidence Obama, diabolisation croissante de l'Iran, bruits de bottes à la frontière Colombie/Venezuela, crise économique, comment analysez-vous l'évolution de l'actualité internationale ?
Je l’analyse comme la marche en avant, à coup de violences, de mensonges et de crises provoquées, du Nouvel Ordre Mondial et son projet de gouvernement mondial, sur un mode totalitaire et inégalitaire qui ressemble beaucoup à du sionisme généralisé ! Paradoxalement, les meilleurs analystes de cette progression impériale sont les patriotes américains, notamment Alex Jones et son excellent «Fall of the Republic» dont le site E&R publiera bientôt l’intégralité sous-titrée…
The evening also included a musical performance by an interfaith choir made up of SASSDS students and St. Catherine of Siena School in Norwood, remarks by Arbeiter, Consul General of Israel to New England Nadav Tamir, and Rick Mann, president of the Friends of New England Holocaust Memorial. Rabbi David Paskin of SASSDS [South Area Solomon Schechter Day School], gave the invocation and benediction. The evening also included a candle lighting ceremony and a singing of “The Star Spangled Banner” and “Hatikva” the Israeli national anthem, by Lisa Yves Winner, a parent of an SASSDS student.It was bad enough that O'Malley was even present, but for him to remain during the playing of the Hatikvah boggles the mind.
We must not be reticent in working to establish a civilization of love and solidarity. We must always remember the Holocaust, always remember the Kristallnacht, and the values and examples of so many heroic people who died in resisting. We must all pledge ourselves over and over and over again that it will never happen again.For Palestinians under Zionist oppression every day is Kristallnacht.
 Israel Arbeiter, a Holocaust survivor, shows Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley the Israel Arbeiter Gallery of Understanding during a Nov. 12 reception at the South Area Solomon Schechter Day School. The gallery depicts photos of Arbeiter during the time of the Holocaust and his personal story of survival, as well as information on Jewish persecution in Europe during the Holocaust. Pilot photo/ Jim Lockwood |
Rosenthal's predecessor ... Gregg ... Rickman said he hopes she will pay particular attention to venues such as the U.N. Human Rights Council, which he said is dedicated to solely going after Israel, and Arab countries, where bias against Jews is often cloaked in clever language.Khaled Amayreh explains the UN's real problem with Israel in his article appropriately entitled Zionists: We hate you because you are evil, not because you are Jewish.
Here it comes: Best Buy ran a national Black Friday ad inviting the world to celebrate Thanksgiving and Eid Al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice. Fair enough, right? Happy Eid! Well, take a gander at the ad up there and brace yourself.
Look closely. You’ll probably miss the good will and wishes, they’re so innocuous.
So you’d think that a national retailer would be praised for trying to reach out to its Muslim visitors and you’d also think that since Black Friday comes around Thanksgiving, an ostensibly “conservative” holiday,” they’d be excused for not putting baby Jesus in the carriage Toad drives in
Nope.
[Click here to read the entire article.]RCA Bans 'Messianic Rabbis'
The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) is banning Chabad rabbis with messianic beliefs from membership in its group.
By COLliveA rabbinical Modern Orthodox umbrella group in the U.S. is banning Chabad rabbis with messianic beliefs from membership.
The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), one of the world's largest organizations of Orthodox rabbis, includes an "affirmation regarding messianic belief" clause to its membership application.
The clause states: "By checking this box and with my signature below, I affirm that the following resolution, adopted at the RCA's 1996 Annual Convention, reflects my beliefs:
"In light of disturbing developments which have recently arisen in the Jewish community... declares that there is not and never has been a place in Judaism for the belief that Mashiach ben David will begin his Messianic mission only to experience death, burial and resurrection before completing it."
This is seen as a direct rebuff to a group within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement who believes that the Lubavitcher Rebbe can still be the messiah.
While the Rebbe passed away on the third of Tammuz 5754, the group cites what Rav Nachman says in Gemara Sanhedrin implying the Moshiach could also come from the dead.
The RCA, associated with Yeshiva University, which employs critic of Chabad messianism Dr. David Berger, dates back to 1923 and its key member was Rabbi Yosef Dov Soloveitchik who was known to have had a friendship with the Rebbe.
His brother, Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivas Brisk in Chicago, wrote in 2000: "We should not label subscribers to these beliefs as heretics."
Among its members are Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, Av Beit Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Riskin, Chief Rabbi of the Israeli city of Efrat - both friends of Chabad.
I called the RCA to check on this but Rabbi Herring wasn't available.
What accounts for Obama’s reversals? The most obvious explanation is that Obama is giving priority to his ambitious domestic agenda and rightly fears that real pressure on Israel would backfire in Congress, where it is likely that some key members would, in effect, hold their support for Obama’s domestic programs hostage to his Israeli policies. While this is understandable, the consequences for a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are dim indeed.I have been tracking and discussing the intertwining of the issues of health care, financial reform and the Middle East conflict for a long time now: Health Care, Obama, Israel Lobby.
The Mission found numerous instances of deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects (individuals, whole families, houses, mosques) in violation of the fundamental international humanitarian law principle of distinction, resulting in deaths and serious injuries. In these cases the Mission found that the protected status of civilians was not respected and the attacks were intentional, in clear violation of customary law reflected in article 51 (2) and 75 of Additional Protocol I, article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and articles 6 and 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In some cases the Mission additionally concluded that the attack was also launched with the intention of spreading terror among the civilian population. Moreover, in several of the incidents investigated, the Israeli armed forces not only did not use their best efforts to permit humanitarian organizations access to the wounded and medical relief, as required by customary international law reflected in article 10 (2) of Additional Protocol I, but they arbitrarily withheld such access.The IDF and the government it serves are terrorist entities.
In other words, the very policies the U.S. has been pursuing in the name of combating Terrorism -- invading, occupying, and bombing Muslim countries; locking them up without trials; torturing them; violating the values we've been preaching to the world -- have been the most potent instruments for fueling Islamic radicalism and terrorism. By contrast, those who have been continuously accused of being "soft on Terrorism" and even being allied with the Terrorists -- those who opposes our various wars, who demanded and provided basic human rights protections and equal liberties to Muslims, who objected to their own governments' oppressive and belligerent policies -- have done more to diffuse and impede Muslim radicalism than virtually anyone else in the world.The critical word in the above paragraph is "equal." Not just Muslim radicals but all Americans and in fact all human beings should be enraged at the impunity that Jewish Zionists have achieved in national and international legal systems.
It seems evident President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because of what he hopes to do on behalf of peace—especially in the Middle East, the most dangerous region to U. S. national security and regional peace—rather than for what he has actually accomplished.
The contentious Iranian issue aside, there are currently two main threats to peace in the Middle East: the Taliban/al-Qaida threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which almost certainly is not amenable to a peaceful solution, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which might be, but only with strong U. S. leadership.
It is widely agreed that the only hope for a stable settlement of that conflict is a “two-state solution,” meaning the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, living side by side with a secure Israel. The primary obstacle to such a settlement is not the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, which desperately wants an agreement. The central problem is that Israel directly occupies or otherwise controls all the territory that would be allotted to a Palestinian state.
If anything, Israeli policies, behavior and attitudes have hardened in the last few years. Consequently, in the absence of sustained and serious pressure by the United States— the only country taken seriously by Israel—there is no chance Israel will end the occupation and agree to Palestinian independence in the context of a two-state settlement.
Obama either does not understand these realities or is unwilling or unable to pay the domestic price that serious U. S. policy changes would assuredly entail. To be sure, in the early days of Obama’s presidency there were some promising signs—his apparent commitment to strong U. S. leadership to bring about a two-state settlement, his appointment of the highly respected George Mitchell as his representative in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and his Cairo speech last March, in which he not only reached out to the Muslim world but specifically criticized Israeli policies in the occupied territories.
Since that promising beginning, however, Obama has been in full retreat from any political confrontation with Israel and its U. S. supporters— the consequence of which assuredly will be the collapse of his efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East.
There are a number of signs that Obama is essentially continuing the failed policies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and other previous presidents. First, most of his appointments
have gone to down-the-line supporters of Israeli policies, including Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose future political ambitions make it unlikely that she will want to take on the “pro-Israel” forces.
Second, despite Obama’s repeated campaign rhetoric about the need to engage in diplomacy with one’s adversaries, he is following Israel’s lead in refusing to talk to Hamas. Not only is it the case that there can be no Israeli-Palestinian settlement without the concurrence of Hamas, there is evidence and expert opinion that the organization — in practice, though not always in rhetoric—is moderating its positions and will accept, de facto at least, a two-state settlement.
Third, it appears that the administration has given up on its efforts to get Israel even to take the first step toward peace-ending settlement expansion, let alone removing the existing settlements. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stonewalled Obama, and won. Indeed, it is stepping up new construction in the occupied territories, especially in Arab East Jerusalem, which it bluntly states will never be turned over to the Palestinians. If not, there is no chance for a two-state solution.
Finally, the administration has rejected out of hand the factual findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Goldstone Commission, which recently issued a long report (bitterly contested by Israel’s supporters) that blisteringly criticized Israeli behavior in its attack on Gaza last December and January, and called on the United Nations to consider taking Israeli “war crimes” to the International Criminal Court. Effectively stopping any international action, Obama’s U. N. representative termed the Goldstone Commission Report “unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable.” Israel’s ambassador to the United States was pleased, saying that the American position “could have been drafted in Tel Aviv, it was so wonderful.”
What is the Goldstone Report? After last year’s attack on Gaza, the U. N. Human Rights Commission appointed Richard Goldstone to head an investigation. Goldstone is one of the world’s most prestigious jurists, who had led the legal fight against apartheid in his native South Africa and later was the chief prosecutor for the U. N. International Criminal Tribunal in the war crimes trials against leading Serbian and Rwandan officials. In addition, Goldstone is Jewish, regards himself as “a Zionist who loves Israel” and has a number of ties with that country, including service as a trustee of Hebrew University — where in 2000 he gave a speech pointing out that “bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust.”
The concept of the “just war” is the dominant Western philosophy concerning the complicated efforts to subject warfare to moral constraints. The theory distinguishes between just causes to go to war — principally, self-defense — and just methods in warfare. Contrary to repeated charges in Israel and the United States, the commission in no way challenged Israel’s proclaimed cause, its right to respond to Hamas rocket or suicide attacks, but focused exclusively on its methods of “self-defense.”
The commission heard extensive testimony, conducted 188 interviews with officials, witnesses and victims in Gaza, examined thousands of pages of documents and photographs, held many public hearings, reviewed the extensive reports and findings of other international — and Israeli — human rights groups and made numerous on-site field visits in Gaza. As the commission noted, it also sought to learn the Israeli side of the story, but the Israeli government refused to meet with it or cooperate in the investigation.
Here are the commission’s main findings about actions in Gaza:
• It estimated that between 1,300 and 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the attack; it accepted the general assessment of various Israeli and international human rights groups that at least half of them were civilians, up to 40 percent of whom were women and children. Most of these casualties, the report found, were the consequence of “systematically reckless” and indiscriminate attacks (artillery barrages, white phosphorous antipersonnel shelling, etc.) in densely populated areas of Gaza.
Prior to the attack on Gaza, top Israeli military officials had publicly announced a revised military doctrine that, in the Goldstone Commission’s words, “explicitly admits the intentional targeting of civilian targets as part of the Israeli strategy.” The commission’s conclusion: “Statements by political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza leave little doubt that disproportionate destruction and violence were part of a deliberate policy.”
Still, one might argue, the demonstrable fact that Israel deliberately chose disproportional or indiscriminate military methods does not demonstrate that civilians were deliberately targeted. Sadly, though, even that argument is problematic: the commission provided highly detailed and convincing discussions of 11 incidents in which Israeli forces launched attacks that intentionally killed a number of civilians.
• The Goldstone Report concluded that the Israeli attack was deliberately designed to “inflict collective punishment” on the people of Gaza, by striking at the economy and “the foundations of civilian life.”
After the free election of a large Hamas majority in parliamentary elections in Gaza in January 2006, Israel began what has widely been termed “the siege of Gaza.” It radically cut Gazan trade and commerce with the outside world and repeatedly bombed and shelled Gaza’s roads, bridges, factories, electrical networks, farms and olive orchards. In early November 2008, Israel drastically intensified the siege and (as one expert put it) “sealed all crossing points into Gaza, vastly reducing and at times denying food supplies, medicines, fuel, cooking gas and parts for water and sanitation systems.”
During the attack that began on Dec. 27, the Goldstone Commission reported, Israel “deliberately and systematically” engaged in extensive and “wanton” attacks, destroying private homes, schools, police stations, government institutions (among others, the Gaza Parliament was leveled), hospitals and ambulances, factories and industrial facilities, fuel depots, water and sewage plants, water storage tanks and various food production systems including orchards, greenhouses and fishing boats—all “for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance to the population of Gaza.”
After the attack, Israel continued its blockade of Gaza. Consequently, according to a number of international reports, unemployment is at least 50 percent, 80 percent are estimated to live below international poverty lines and 75 percent suffer from malnutrition.
• Goldstone accepted his appointment only after being assured that his mandate included an investigation into violations of international law and possible war crimes by Hamas, as well as by Israel. Accordingly, the commission’s report does discuss and condemn “the impact on civilians of rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian armed groups on southern Israel,” as well as Hamas’ repression and violence against internal Palestinian opponents of its rule over Gaza.
These sections of the report are far briefer than those that deal with Israel, and there is no doubt that the commission considered Israeli policies and behavior to be far worse than those of Hamas. Moreover, the commission found “no evidence” that Hamas combatants deliberately exposed Palestinian civilians to attack or used them as “human shields,” or that they used hospitals and ambulances for military activities.
The overall conclusion was that the “systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this report leave the mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations” — meaning the Israeli government and military leadership. The commission recommended that unless the Israelis (and Palestinians) carry out serious internal investigations within six months, the U. N. Security Council should consider referring the matter to the International Criminal Court for possible criminal proceedings against those who committed (in the commission’s words) “war crimes” or possibly even “crimes against humanity.”
How credible is the report? The conclusions, language and recommendations of the Goldstone Commission are, by the usually bland international standards, unsparing or even harsh. Even so, if its report is factually accurate, it is hard to see what else the commission could have concluded. As the award-winning Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote, “The Goldstone Commission’s findings are in line with what anyone who didn’t shut his or her eyes and ears already knows.”
That is, its report confirmed previous reports by leading European, U. S. and Israeli journalists and newspapers before, during and after the Israeli attack, as well as the investigations and reports of international human rights organizations (including the Red Cross, CARE, Oxfam, Physicians for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and a number of U. N. agencies) and those by a number of Israeli human rights organizations, including B’tselem and Israeli Physicians for Human Rights. Finally, since the end of the attack some 30 Israeli soldiers who participated in it have confirmed and provided new details of the Israeli violations of international law and accepted moral restraints, as published in the appropriately named Israeli document, “Breaking the Silence.”
So, what now? There is little chance that the commission’s
recommendations will be implemented. The Israeli government and military already have “investigated” their own actions and concluded that they were appropriate, indeed that they have “the most moral army in the world.” To be sure, there is talk in Israel of a new investigation, if only to fend off facing an international criminal tribunal. However, the likelihood that the government will accuse itself of war crimes seems small.
Nor, in light of U. S. opposition, will the United Nations be able to act, let alone the International Criminal Court. In essence, then, Obama is rapidly returning to traditional U. S. policies, which amount either to essentially unconditional U. S. support of whatever Israel does or, at most, weak hand-wringing — for example, “the settlements are an obstacle to peace” — unaccompanied by any firm measures and therefore routinely disregarded by Israel. Indeed, Obama already has made it known that U. S. diplomatic and military aid to Israel will not be used as leverage to get the Netanyahu government to agree to end the occupation and allow the creation of a Palestinian state. Therefore, there is no chance that it will.
What accounts for Obama’s reversals? The most obvious explanation is that Obama is giving priority to his ambitious domestic agenda and rightly fears that real pressure on Israel would backfire in Congress, where it is likely that some key members would, in effect, hold their support for Obama’s domestic programs hostage to his Israeli policies. While this is understandable, the consequences for a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are dim indeed.
Jerome Slater, professor emeritus of political science at the University at Buffalo, has taught and written professionally about Israeli policies for more than 40 years. He has close personal ties with Israel and is a former Fulbright lecturer at Haifa University. In 1970, following three years as an anti-submarine warfare officer on a U. S. destroyer, he offered to serve on an Israeli destroyer should war break out with Egypt, but Israel declined.
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Dieudonné elaborates on his anti-Zionist activities in Tehran
Tehran Times Art Desk
TEHRAN -- French actor and political activist Dieudonné M’bala M’bala attended a press conference held here in Tehran on Sunday and talked about his productions in France as well as his anti-Zionist activities.
The conference was held at the Cinematic Department of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in which Dieudonné expressed his interest in working in Iran’s cinema.
Dieudonné is famous for his anti-Zionist attitudes. He is also the owner of the Théâtre de la Main d’Or in Paris, which is used for both stand-up comedy and political events by himself as well as friends and colleagues, such as the militant anti-Semitic “Tribu Ka”.
“I am a comedian in France and have worked on several screenplays and scenarios. Here in Tehran I was a jury member for the Tehran International Short Film Festival and had the time to watch over 90 short films, all of which I believe were of excellent quality.
Dieudonné regarded the role of cinema, art and culture as important in bringing the world’s nations closer to one another, adding, “I have discussed producing joint films in your country, Iran, (with Deputy Culture Minister for Cinematic Affairs Javad Shamaqdari) and I have also initiated the new concept of Shoahnanas (Holocaust Pineapples) which focuses on the Holocaust.
“It is forbidden to talk about Holocaust in France, but I have arranged the comedy in such a way that it ridicules the issue of the Holocaust. Comedy is an influential tool and now that we cannot speak directly about it, this is the best approach to use.
“I have another project centering on a storyline that takes place during the reign of King Louis XIV of France and treats the issue of the African slave trade in France,” he remarked.
He later talked about the reasons for his fights against the Holocaust and slave trade and said, “I personally stand against any movement that mistreat people. The black community in France has tolerated much pain and this has pushed me to stand up against all forms of oppression and make use of comedy in my country where there is no justice.”
On his reason for choosing Iran for his joint productions, he said, “Today, there are only a few countries like Iran which is open to joint productions on these types of issues.”
Dieudonné continued saying that he also met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday and they both held talks on art and the important role it plays in the freedom of nations. “We also discussed that the world is dominated by imperialism and that one can not make use of art to depict this. The President also stressed making the best use of art and culture to accurately portray imperialism and capitalism. We also discussed the censorship conducted by the Zionist lobby in Europe and their influence on the media.”
Dieudonné emphasized that France is a big country and it is one of the largest colonial powers in the world. Freedom in this country is reserved for the wealthy class of people, “but I still like France.”
He later talked about Iran’s cinema and said, “I had not watched many movies before coming to Iran but heard a lot about it. I had only watched ‘Saint Mary’ (Shahriar Bahrani). I saw a few short films here in Tehran and also “Kingdom of Solomon” (Shahriar Bahrani) at a private screening.”
Dieudonné talked about the problems he has tolerated for his anti-Zionist attitudes, “the Zionist lobby has put a lot of pressure on me. I had at least 200 plays scheduled for performance but they were all canceled. To get around this, I bought a big bus in which I can travel to different districts and then perform my plays when I get there. In one of my performances, I was blatantly attacked by four Israeli men, and as a consequence, I have been summoned to various courts.”
Deputy Culture Minister Shamaqdari was supposed to attend the conference, but did not take part since he was attending another session. Sources indicate that there will be a conference with his participation next week.
Photo: French actor and political activist Dieudonné M’bala M’bala attends a press conference in Tehran on November 22, 2009, during which he explained his activities in France. (ISNA/Amir Kholusi)
Toleranzpatent
When I was an undergraduate at Harvard, the reaction to Martillo's three hypotheses convinced me that I probably had no future in Jewish studies.
The hypotheses were:
1. Peripheral Romano-Frankish, Romano-Arabic, and Turko-Slavic populations constructed the Medieval world.
Romano-Franks created the Medieval Christian West.
Romano-Arabs created the Medieval Islamic East.
Turko-Slavs and the last Geonim created the Medieval Jewish trade networks, (a) which were the "territory" of Medieval Rabbinic Judaism and (b) without which the Medieval world did not function economically.
Here are related blog entries:
Why Study Yiddish Culture?
[Patricia Crone] What do we actually know about Mohammed?
2. Nineteenth century Jews inherited a superior form of social networking from the international Jewish trade networks of the Middle Ages.
Even though pre-modern forms of Jewish business activity were in decline since the late 18th century, the associated Jewish networks of trust increased in size and cohesiveness with the development of international telecommunications technology and the growth of the associated international media industries in the 19th century.
At the same time, (1) because Jewish population was growing rapidly, (2) because many traditional Jewish economic niches had become obsolete, and (3) because more non-Jews had begun to enter traditionally Jewish types of business, Jewish social networks were becoming more aggressive and often tried to establish effectively exclusive claim to new economic sectors.
Increasing numbers of non-Jews began to view Jews as economic cheaters, and despite self-serving Jewish efforts to blame Christianity for rising hostility toward Jews (in an era of declining religious belief!), classic late 19th anti-Semitism was really a response to the growing effectiveness of Jewish social networking and can be primarily attributed to antisocial Jewish behavior associated with certain aspects of economic modernization and technological innovation that advantaged the Jewish meta-population.
[See The Importance of Nuremberg Tribunal Law and Wilders' Columbia Song and Dance.]
3. Hellenistic Judaism arises as a development of the Greek colonies planted in Palestine in the wake of Alexander's conquests, for the descendants of the Greek colonists began to practice Judaic religion and then began to emigrate to Alexandria and other parts of the Hellenistic world to create the Greek-speaking Judaic Diaspora communities, which then sent funds to the Jerusalem Temple for sacrifices.
Not only could Greek-speaking Judeans emigrating to the Diaspora find scriptural justification for taking pagan wives in the Book of Ruth, but the Book of Esther could also be read to rationalize proselytizing gentiles.
The later Hasmoneans and the Herodians seem to have developed some awareness that Judaizing pagans increased the wealth and power of Kingdom of Judea especially if the Kings of Judea came to be perceived by Romans and Greeks as the Judaic Kings.
According to the Latin texts, the title of the ruler of Judea develops from Rex Iudaeae (King of Judea) to Rex Iudaeus (Judean King) and finally to Rex Iudaicus (Judaic King).
In the Gospels, Jesus is called Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judaeorum (Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων).
An expansion of the Greek-speaking Diaspora dovetailed with road and port building within Judea as well as
John 4:22 might be an oblique or garbled reference to Judaic proselytization.
ὑμεῖς προσκυνεῖτε ὁ οὐκ οἴδατε· ἡμεῖς προσκυνοῦμεν ὃ οἴδαμεν, ὅτιἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν.KJV
Ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship for salvation is of the JewsI think there is a material difference in Greek between
ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν (Septuagint)and
for salvation is from the Jews (KJV: of the Jews)
ὅτι ἡ σωτηρία τοις Ιουδαίοις ἐστίνThe later is more consistent with Septuagint conceptualization and phraseology.
for salvation is to/for/of the Jews
1:17 ᾿Εν δὲ τῷ ὄρει Σιὼν ἔσται ἡ σωτηρία, καὶ ἔσται ἅγιον· καὶ κατακληρονομήσουσιν ὁ οἶκος ᾿Ιακὼβ τοὺς κατακληρονομήσαντας αὐτούς.Esther 4:14 provides a grammatical construction that should be compared with John 4:22.
But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance and there shall be holiness and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions
ὡς ὅτι ἐὰν παρακούσῃς ἐν τούτῳ τῷ καιρῷ ἄλλοθεν βοήθεια καὶ σκέπη ἔσται τοῖς ιουδαίοις σὺ δὲ καὶ ὁ οἶκος τοῦ πατρός σου ἀπολεῖσθε καὶ τίς οἶδεν εἰ εἰς τὸν καιρὸν τοῦτον ἐβασίλευσαςIn other words John 4:22 can be read to suggest that Judeans are bringing salvation to non-Judeans and are not merely the beneficiaries of salvation, which is the more usual Old Testament/Hebrew Bible conceptualization. (According to the normal Christian interpretation Jesus is referring to himself.)
For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise (will be) to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
Thus Hasmonean and Herodian period Judaic proselytization
Constantinian Christianity crystallizes in the 4th century. Islam seems to be a reaction among some Judaic Christians to "idolatrous" ideas incorporated in Christianity while Rabbinic crystalizes at least in part as a reaction to the growth of Islam.
Here are some related blog entries:
Followup(II): Origins of Modern Jewry
Reading Abrahamic Scripture Together
[Khaleej Times] Israel Steals Palestinian Heritage, History
Jewish, Christian, and Palestinian Holidays (South Park videoclip for fun)
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The three hypotheses are intimately connected and provided a unified frame to look at political-economic development from the Greco-Roman antiquity through the modern period and form the basis for my fourth hypothesis, which I developed after working on EU funded infrastructure development projects in the Occupied Territories.
Martillo's Fourth Hypothesis
Political science and the historical discussion of the nature of the nation are too restrictive because they assume that the elemental nation-state must be consolidated on the basis of a territory and language.
From the early 19th century onward Jewish communities undergo a process of virtual national consolidation on a foundation with two key components.
The first component consisted of the remnants of pre-modern Jewish trade networks that had been constructed around a common faith requiring a commitment to Jewish sacred law. Jewish sacred law (or Halakhah) provided a uniform commercial code that regulated Jewish networks of trust in mercantile and financial industries.
The second component was a new national consciousness associated with the new idea of a Jewish Volk that must take possession and control of Palestine even if the vast majority of Jews never migrate there.
Evolving (and somewhat different) political and economic interests of Western, Central and Eastern European Jews worked together to create the Zionist Virtual Colonial Motherland
(1) that partnered with the UK and
(2) that managed the New Settlement and now the State of Israel as a colonial dependency.
Since the end of the British Mandatory, the Zionist colonial system has evolved into a vastly profitable mostly financial empire that has rendered the US government an intimidated and dependent client state within an extremely flexible imperial system.
Introduction: Jewish Historical Political Economics provides a starting point to understand the foregoing ideas.
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Economy to grow by 2.5-3.5 pc in 2009-10: SBP
Friday, October 30, 2009
Warns against too much reliance on western markets for exports
By Saad Hasan
KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday said that Pakistan’s GDP growth is projected to remain between 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent during 2009-10 if the manufacturing and agricultural sectors performed well.
There is already some recovery in the country’s industrial production as the 11-month negative growth in the Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) sector is likely to turn positive in the first quarter, from July to September, it said in its economic review report for fiscal 2008-09.
However, the crippling factors like energy shortage and inter-corporate circular debt, which pulled down economic growth last year to just 2 per cent, continue to pose serious challenges. While the SBP has not mentioned the repercussions of the recent cut in gas supply to many factories in northern parts of the country, industry people say it will lead to decline in production.
If it had not been for record harvest of three major crops of wheat, rice and maize, the growth would have been negligible last year, the report said, adding agriculture will continue to play a vital role in deciding the growth trajectory.
Growth in the services sector, which is mainstay of the economy, dropped to eight-year low to just 3.9 per cent as transport, storage, communication and financial industry suffered from weak domestic demand.
The double digit CPI inflation averaged at 20.8 per cent throughout 2008-09, eating into the household budgets. It is projected to remain between 10 and 12 per cent this year, the report said.
Last year saw all the macroeconomic indicators sliding down as a consequence of internal and external issues. Rise in international commodity prices swelled the import bill, suicide attacks scared off investors and fiscal deficit increased as the cash-strapped government tried to meet subsidy-laden expenditures.
By end of 2008, the government had no choice but to enter an IMF-sponsored macroeconomic stabilisation programme to avert the balance of payment crisis, which rose following a steep fall in the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
The report shows that the programme did help in contracting fiscal and current account deficit. Fiscal deficit dropped to Rs 680.4 billion during fiscal 2008-09 from Rs 777.2 billion in the preceding year. That was achieved in part by doing away with energy-related subsidies.
However, the SBP said, the government’s move to cut development expenditure was less welcoming as it badly affected the construction-related industries. For the current fiscal year, the SBP has projected the fiscal and current account deficits to remain between 4.7 per cent and 5.2 per cent of GDP. Last year, the two deficits were 5.2 per cent and 5.3 per cent, respectively.
Deficit in the current account, which represents payment receipts between a country and the rest of the world, has improved on back of slump in imports and substantial increase in remittances sent home by expatriates.
The central bank expects the trend to continue as exports pick up and remittances continue to rise. But resurgence in import growth and doubts over foreign exchange flows pose some threat, it added.
The SBP has cautioned the government against too much reliance on Western markets, devastated by the global financial crisis, for the country’s exports. It insisted that regional markets should be explored.
Slowdown in economy should not hinder the efforts to expand the tax base, especially when day-to-day expenditures of the government are expected to rise in the wake of the ongoing war against terrorists, it said.
In the past year, the government easily managed to borrow from the commercial banks without crowding out the private sector because of subdued demand for finances, it said, warning that this state of affairs cannot continue now.
It emphasised on immediate need to foster a culture of savings at home as Pakistan might find it difficult to access international capital markets at reasonable cost. “To mobilise savings, it is necessary to build savings institutions that can tap pension and provident funds,” it added.
Jacob G. HornbergerThe U.S. government has now extended its assassination program to the drug war. According to the New York Times, the Pentagon now has an assassination list for suspected drug dealers in Afghanistan.
No arrests. No hearings. No attorneys. No judges. No trials. Just kill them.
Great! So now the occupation of Afghanistan has expanded not only to CIA drone assassinations but also now to Pentagon’s drug-war assassinations.
U.S. officials are justifying the drug-war assassinations as part of their counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan. They say that they’re only going to be assassinating those drug dealers whose drug trafficking is benefiting the terrorists.
I wonder how they make that determination, especially without judicial hearings and trials.
Keep in mind that U.S. officials justify their occupation of Afghanistan as part of their overall “war on terrorism.” Keep in mind also that according to them, in the war on terrorism the entire world is a battlefield, including the United States.
As part of their war on terrorism, U.S. officials claim the power to treat Americans as “enemy combatants,” which entails the power to ignore the rights and guarantees in the Bill of Rights for people suspected of committing the federal criminal offense of terrorism. That includes the power to arrest suspected terrorists, incarcerate them for life, torture them, and deny them due process of law.
It also includes the power to assassinate suspected terrorists, a power that U.S. officials have exercised on “the battlefield” in such places as Yemen, where they assassinated an American citizen who happened to be traveling with a suspected terrorist, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. So far, they have not exercised the assassination power on that part of the battlefield that encompasses the United States, but they certainly now wield the post-9/11 power to do so.
And now they have extended their assassination power to the drug war. And without even bothering to ask Congress to enact a law giving them such power. Hey, this is the era of the war on terrorism. They don’t need no stinking assassination law. All they need is a presidential order to the CIA and the military to begin assassinating people.
Will they apply their assassination power to suspected drug dealers elsewhere in the world? After all, doesn’t the sale of heroin everywhere likely put money into the pockets of drug producers in Afghanistan, given that that’s where 90 percent of the world’s heroin originates?
We know that they are employing the power to assassinate suspected terrorists in different parts of the world. Time will tell whether they do the same with suspected drug dealers, including, of course, that part of the battlefield that encompasses the United States.
Meanwhile, families are mourning the deaths of three American DEA agents and 11 U.S. soldiers who died this past week in two helicopter crashes in Afghanistan.
Fourteen more senseless deaths. Where does this lunacy end?
End the assassinations. End the occupations. End the war on terrorism. End the war on drugs. There is no other solution for restoring freedom, morality, peace, prosperity, and security to our nation.
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) – An Army officer testified that he shot and killed an Iraqi detainee because he felt he was in danger.
1st Lt. Michael Behenna is charged with premeditated murder, but during trial testimony Thursday at Fort Campbell he said he did not intend to kill Ali Mansour Mohammed.
Behenna said he made several mistakes while he was interrogating the detainee in a secluded railroad culvert near Beiji, Iraq.
He said he should not have stripped the detainee and pointed his weapon at him, but that he was trying to scare him into giving information about insurgents.
Behenna said he looked away and then saw Mohammed moving his hands toward the gun. Behenna said he shot the detainee twice.
The Jews who dominated Tin Pan Alley and the turn-of-the century vaudeville world were also central in the popularization and propagation of profoundly demeaning African-American stereotypes. Pamela Brown Lavitt notes Tin Pan Alley and the many onstage Jewish "coon callers":
"Jewish women vaudevillians at the turn of the century popularized what is now a little-discussed and misunderstood performance venue, known as "coon shouting" ... Trying to break into the entertainment business, [Tin Pan Alley entrepreneurs'] aesthetics were circumscribed in a vehemently antiblack and xenophobic milieu. By the mid-1880-s they had formed a tight-knit Tin Pan Alley industry that came to dominate vaudeville and early black musicals ... Intended as comedy, coon song ranged from jocular and dismissive to cruel and sadistic ... Coon song sheet music and illustrated covers proliferated defamatory images of blacks in barely coded slanderous lyrics. For example, the 'N' word and associated inferences were dispatched in words like 'mammy,' 'honey boy,' 'pickinniny,' 'chocolate,' 'watermelon,' 'possum,' and the most prevalent 'coon.'" [LAVITT, P., 2000, p. 253-258]
Especially well known Jewish "coon callers" included Sophie Tucker, Stella Mayhew, Fanny Brice, Anna Held, Eddie Cantor, and Al Jolson.
Jews have long gravitated to an entrepreneurial exploitation of the Black cultural scene and jazz music. As Burton Peretti notes:
"Aside from the hazards of the mob [organized crime] environment, the exploitation faced by jazz players was rather typical for this era [1930s and 1940s]. Jazz, like minstrels and ragtime before it, came under the control of professional promoters who sought to make music profitable. [They adapted] the technique of advertising, song plugging, and vaudeville ... Some promoters, like Joe Glaser (who managed Louis Armstrong in the thirties) were associates of organized crime who left the underworld when prohibition was repealed. Glaser apparently had overseen Al Capone's profits from the Sunset Cafe and a prostitution ring before he became Armstrong's manager in 1935. Many more promoters, however, were veterans of Tin Pan Alley, Manhattan's song-publishing industry, including Irving Mills, a former singer and songwriter who managed Duke Ellington's and other black bands in the thirties." [PERETTI, p. 147]
Glaser ran the Associated Booking Corporation, often "the exclusive agent for many of the top Black performers. He became a close associate of many of the top underworld figures in Chicago and New York, whom he met through his band-booking agency." [MOLDEA, p. 14] Glaser had been an early partner in the company with eventual MCA chief Jules Stein. In 1962, mob-linked attorney Sidney Korshak, also Jewish, gained control of the ABC company. [MCDOUGAL, p. 141] Mills and Paddy Harmon, owner of Chicago's Dreamland Cafe, "sought and gained spurious renown, as Mills took partial credit for many Ellington compositions and Harmon patented and gave his name to a trumpet mute that had long been popular among Joe Oliver and other black players." [PERETTI, p. 148]
The rip-off of Black artists was a norm for the era. As Al Silverman notes in the case of Fats Waller: "In his time Fats wrote the melodies to over 360 songs. Not that many bear his name today, unfortunately, because when money was needed he'd write the music and sell all rights to unscrupulous Tin Pan Alley characters." [SILVERMAN, p. 129-130] "That practice of show business share-cropping ... in the 1920s and 1930s," notes the director of Harlem's Apollo Amateur Night, Ralph Cooper, "existed right on through the fifties and sixties. Its bitterness still exists among many performers to this day -- a bitterness from the theft of their songs, their sound, their talent." [COOPER, p. 199]
Jewish singers "Sophie Tucker, Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson," notes Donald Fischer, "performed in blackface at the beginning of their careers, singing black songs. They later built on their successes in this medium to develop national statures and professional sucesses with other music. However, their early songs were for the most part borrowed or plagiarized from African-American sources, with little or no public recognition -- or monetary reward -- for the creative talents that produced them." [FISCHER, D., 6-30-2000, p. 21A]
Jews were also prominent in the overseeing of the Black community's jazz life, including the control of musical clubs in Black neighborhoods in a variety of American cities. "The invasion of the Black community by organized crime lords with connections to downtown money," notes Ted Vincent, "was certainly the most sensational contribution to the loss of Black oversight of neighborhood dance halls and theatres." [VINCENT, p. 176] "Slumming resorts" served a largely non-Black audience and "were noted for their riverboat decor, fake magnolia plants, and nearly nude dancers ... Perhaps the nationwide pioneer in the resorts was Isadore Shor's Entertainment Cafe." [VINCENT, p. 78] In Harlem, such clubs included Connie's Inn (owned by Connie Innerman) and the famed Apollo Theatre. "From the opening of the [Apollo] building in 1912 until 1934," notes Vincent, "the theatre was a showcase for white [i.e., largely Jewish] vaudeville burlesque shows, with white strippers coming to be the main attraction." [VINCENT, p. 189] The Apollo was eventually sold by "Burlesque Kings Hurtig and Seaman" to Sid Cohen and Morris Sussman, and then to Frank Schiffman and Leo Brecher. Brecher also owned the Douglas, the Roosevelt, the Lafayette Theatre ("the prime showcase for black talent in America") [COOPER, p. 44], and the Harlem Opera House located a block from the Apollo. [VINCENT, p. 189-192] Jay Fagan, and Moses and Charles Gale (Galewski), founded the popular Savoy Ballroom in 1926.
Mel Watkins notes the reputation in the Black community of dominant mogul Frank Schiffman:
"Schiffman was a controversial figure in black entertainment. Admired and respected by some, scorned and excoriated by others, he was rarely viewed neutrally. His Machiavellian approach to business is a matter of record, and most would admit that he was an unrepentant shark in business matters. He quickly eliminated his competitors and for decades eradicated all serious competition, which earned him the grudging esteem of other showmen. Among performers, however, the estimate was not glowing. Of his knowledge of black acts, John Bubbles [an African-American performer of the era] said, 'Only thing he knew was how to get people cheap as he could, and work them as long as he could.' And John Hammond, a record producer and friend, flatly declared 'Frank had no artistic taste at all.'" [WATKINS, M., 1994, p. 386]
Samuel Charters and Leonard Kunstad note the situation of another famous nightclub:
"The Cotton Club had opened at 142nd St. and Lexington Ave. in 1922 with a strict policy of white only. The owner, Bernard Levy, had pressed his policy, despite loud protests from the Harlem community. He used Negro orchestras and a Negro revue and ran it as a tourist attraction for society people who wanted to see a little of 'Harlem life' ... The club was forced to admit colored patrons during the next winter, but the prices he kept high and it remained predominantly a tourist attraction until the Depression." [CHARTERS, p. 217] New York's Latin Quarter club (with eventual branches in other cities) was also owned by a Jew, Lou Walters, father of famous newscaster Barbara Walters; Monte Kay was the founder of the famous Birdland jazz club. He too was Jewish. Mobster Morris Levy later controlled the place. As Israeli scholar Robert Rockaway notes about a common undercurrent in such night life: "Jewish Gangsters frequented nightclubs ... In fact, Jewish underworld figures owned many nightspots and speakeasies. In New York, Dutch Schultz owned the Embassy Club. Charley 'King' Solomon owned Boston's Coconut Grove. In Newark, Longy Zwillman owned the Blue Mirror and the Casablanca Club. Boo Boo Hoff owned the Picadilly Cafe in Philadelphia. Detroit's [Jewish] Purple Gang owned Luigi's Cafe, one of the city's more opulent clubs. Jewish singers and comedians, such as Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice and Sophie Tucker played in the mob clubs." [ROCKAWAY, R., 1993, p. 205]
Upset with outsider exploitation and degradation of the Black community (where many night clubs were located), there was an effort by the Marcus Garvey African-American movement as early as the 1920s to institute Black-owned Liberty Halls "where the musical offerings would be part of an overall effort at community uplift and not just a profit-oriented business." [VINCENT, p. 114] (From France, even the international jet-set luxury playground/resort of "Club Med" was founded by Gerard Blitz, and built to power by Gilbert Trigano. Both are also Jewish. By 1999 the firm had 116 sites in 36 countries, now headed by Gilbert's son Serge. [REGULY, E., 4-25-88, pl. 24; MCDONELL, E., 5-1-99, p. D10] Hollywood's Roxy nightclub was founded by the Jewish managerial trio of David Geffen, Loud Adler, and Bill Graham. [KING, T., 2000, p. 187]
Jews have of course been prominent over the years as musical performers. These included three of the most influential band leaders of the 1930s -- Benny Goodman ("the King of Swing"), Harry James, and Artie Shaw (Arthur Arshansky). More recent popular names include Leonard Bernstein, Andre Previn, Arthur Fiedler, Stephen Sondheim, and many others.
As noted earlier too, by the 1930s MCA (Music Corporation of America) was a powerful talent agency, founded by Jules Stein and built later to power by Sidney Sheinbein and Lew Wasserman, who ultimately became one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Ronald Brownstein observes that: "By the mid-1930s, MCA controlled many of the country's most popular bands, from Tommy Dorsey to Artie Shaw." [BROWNSTEIN, p. 181] For years, MCA's Jules Stein, adds Michale Pye, "ran the music business so toughly that no dance hall would stand against him." [PYE, p. 18-19] In a 1946 antitrust trial that MCA lost, a Los Angeles federal judge "declared that MCA held a virtual monopoly over the entertainment business." The presiding judge also stated that MCA was "the Octopus ... with tentacles reaching out into all phases and grasping everything in show business." [MOLDEA, p. 2, 3] "The one man," notes non-Jewish band leader Guy Lombardo, "who probably more than any other solidified the business and hastened the era of the Big Bands was Jules Stein. He had started his Music Corporation of America in Chicago and to that city gravitated bands from all over the country, seeking the buildup and engagements they would get if MCA took them in the fold." Lombardo was also under contract to Stein. [LOMBARDO, G., 1975, p. 153] Stein even wrote an introduction to Lombardo's autobiography.
For years MCA increasingly interfaced with Chicago's Mafia and other underworld personalities. Seemingly omnipresent in Hollywood was lawyer Sidney Korshak. "A close friend of Stein's and Wasserman's," says Dan Moldea, "Korshak quickly became one of the most powerful influences in the entertainment industry and in California politics ... [MOLDEA, p. 5] ... Korshak ... has been described by federal investigators as the principle link between the [Hollywood] legitimate business world and organized crime." [MOLDEA, p. 2]
And rock and roll? The Jewish foundation continued. "The most famous and important [rhythm and blues disc jockey]," note Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, "was ... Alan Freed, the father of Rock 'n' Roll ... Freed was credited with co-writing fifteen rock and rock hits including Chuck Berry's 'Maybelline,' but he did little more than promote any of them." [CHAPPLE, p. 56-57] A biography of Freed notes that "by 1956, there was no bigger name in rock and roll than Freed, except Elvis Presley." [JACKSON, p. ix] (Another of America's best known early disc jockeys was also Jewish, Murray the K, aka Murray Kaufman). In 1960, Freed was indicted for accepting $30,000 in bribes to play songs at his radio station. "[Freed] grabbed the kids and led them to the great rock candy mountain," says Albert Goldman, "He named their music, coined its us-against-them rhetoric, created rock show biz, including the package tour ... Alan Freed is really one of the principal exhibits in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Ill Fame ... [He] was not only a crook but a self-righteous hypocrite. Even [Freed's manager] Morris Levy [with deep ties to the criminal underworld, particular the Mafioso Gigante family] had to concede that the 'Father of Rock 'n' Roll' was not a nice man. Speaking as one Jew to another Jew about a third Jew, Levy said simply: 'He could have been another Hitler.'" [GOLDMAN, p. 519-520]
In a book about the Atlantic Records empire (later swallowed by Warners), Dorothy Wade and Justine Picardie noted Morris Levy and the kinds of people that populated the rock and roll industry: "The truth is, with or without mob connections, Morris Levy was much more typical of the new music moguls than either [non-Jewish] Ahmet Ertegun or [Jewish] Jerry Wexler ... The world in which Atlantic had to survive was populated largely by hoodlums and hustlers." [WADE, p. 57] As Syd Nathan, the owner of King Records, once said, "You want to be in the record business? The first thing you learn is that everyone is a liar." [WADE, p. 60] "The early rhythm and blues companies were run by a fraternity of Jews ... They were tough and they were shrewd -- some say unscrupulous -- and they were alternately loved, despised, respected, and feared. The deep bond of these cultural outsiders prompted one gentile, mild rebuke in his voice, to comment that 'Yiddish was the second language of the record business." [COHODAS, N., p. 3-4, 2000]
"To the general public," notes Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, "the music business seems to have a tremendous amount of corruption." [CHAPPLE, p. 226] "I think in Hollywood," media psychologist Stuart Fischel of California State University at Los Angeles told the Los Angeles Times in 1993, "people get into a kind of mind meld. You can come in as a relatively moral and ethical person, but eventually [Hollywood] produces a re-socializing of a subculture with different norms and ethics based on hedonism and materialism. It's hard to know what's going to breach the bounds of acceptable criminality in Hollywood." [ELLER, p. B8, B11] Aside from drugs, prostitution, and all the other extracurricular norms of the interrelated music, film, and television worlds of Hollywood, just at the most basic business level, "payola [bribery] has been a key factor in the establishment of major artists," says Roger Karshner, "the evolution of publishing dynasties and the creation of recording empires. Payola, layola, and taking care of business are the ABC's of the music industry past and present. It has taken many forms, and many publishers, artists, managers, and record people at all levels have participated in payola practices." [KARSHNER, p. 39]
Probably the most important early rhythm and blues recording company was Chess Records, founded by Leonard and Phillip Chess, Jewish immigrants from Poland. They started out with a scrap metal business in the ghetto, then moved into the liquor business, eventually owning several bars in the Black neighborhoods of South Chicago, including the large Macamba Club, which was "reputedly a prime center for prostitution and heavy drug dealing." [DIXON, p. 78] The Chess brothers soon recognized a profitable opportunity open to them with the many Black musical acts that played at their nightclubs; the entrepreneurs soon embarked upon a recording business, eventually producing blues, gospel, and rock and rock music. Seminal Black artists who signed on to the Chess label included Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Etta James, Chuck Berry, and many others. Berry's songs were among the most influential in rock and roll history. "Some people have called Leonard and Phillip Chess visionaries who recognized the potential in the visceral blues of post-World War II Chicago, "says Don Snowden, who co-wrote the auto-biography of bluesman Willie Dixon, "A far greater number have branded the Chess brothers as exploiters who systematically took advantage of the artists who created that music." [DIXON, p. 78] The Rolling Stones even found seminal bluesman Muddy Waters still painting the Chess's home when they came to record in Chicago. [WADE, p. 71]
Frank Schiffman, owner of a number of musical venues in New York's Harlem area, "was a ruthless competitor who would do anything, including take advantage of his black employees and exploit the great black artists who worked for him, in order to increase his profits and beat down the opposition." [COOPER, p. 44]
"Remember [Black singer] Little Eva Boyd?" asks Ralph Cooper, "She worked as a babysitter for two Tin Pan Alley [Jewish] rock and roll writers, Carole King and Gerry Goffen. They wrote a song called 'Loco-Motion' and they asked her to sing it ... Now [1990] she lives in North Carolina, where her people are from. She's a working mother on welfare. She works in a barbeque kitchen as a cook." [COOPER, p. 196]
In 1997, Black singer Darlene Love won a lawsuit for back royalties against famous Jewish musical producer Phil Spector. (Originally awarded $263,000, it was later dropped down to $130,000.) Love was the anonymous lead singer on a number of 1960s-era Spector productions, including He's a Rebel, Da Do Ron Ron, He's Sure the Boy I Love, and other hits. In the early 1980s Ms. Love found herself cleaning toilets for a living, but her singing career later flourished anew. [WILLMAN, C., 10-15-88, CALENDAR, p. 10; WARRICK, P., 11-2-98]
"I didn't know anything about the record business," said early rock and roll sensation Little Richard (of "Tutti Frutti" fame) about his rock and roll career. " I was very dumb ... I was just like a sheep among a bunch of wolves that would devour me at any moment. I think I was taken advantage of because I was uneducated. I think I was treated inhumane ... I think I was treated wrong and many people got rich out of the style of music I created. They are all millionaires, writ many times, and nobody offered me nothing." [WADE, p. 74] Dorothy Wade and Justine Picardie note Little Richard's lamentation, then add: "To which many, if not most, of his black musical contemporaries would add: Amen." [WADE, p. 74] Among others, Richard had in mind the Jewish owner of Specialty Records, Art Rupe, who many years ago bought the rights to his songs for a paltry $10,000.
Chuck Berry remembers being cheated by the Chess brothers: "[Phil Chess finally acknowledged] in writing that no songwriter royalties had been paid for three years on my Chess Records product ... [And in a review of Chess documents] I was surprised to learn that I had been paid the same songwriter royalties for an LP as I was receiving for a single record. Chess claimed to be unaware of this 'mistake,' as if they had never noticed that LPs had between eight and ten songs on them." [BERRY, C., p. 246-247]
"In 1974 Howlin' Wolf filed a lawsuit against Arc Music [the publishing wing of Chess Records, it was co-owned by the Chess brothers and two brothers of Jewish band leader Benny Goodman] [COHODAS, N., 2000, p. 37] asking for $2.5 million for unpaid royalties from his songs ... In 1976 Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon filed identical lawsuits against the publishing company, alleging fraud and conspiracy and asking to paid money damages and to have their publishing contracts voided." [COHODAS, N., 2000, p. 308]
In 1972, Martin Otelsberg became the manager of African-American musician Bo Diddley. Suspecting in later years that he had been swindled, Diddley filed suit against Otelsberg's estate in 1994 and recovered $400,000. As Diddley's lawyer (also Jewish) John Rosenberg noted, "This is a typical story that's happened time and again to musicians like Bo." [MORSE, S., 6-18-94, p. 28] Diddley complained of being cheated by the Chess brothers as well. "To me every nationality has a reason for bein' here," said Diddley, "an' mostly all the Jewish people own everything. They got all the money. Give him a thousand dollars, he'll turn it into ten million. How the heck they do it, I don't know." [COHODAS, N., 2000, p. 110]
The Jewish agent-producer exploitation of Black recording artists in the early rhythm and blues era of the 1940s and 1950s (and later) was predominant and widespread, entrenching a Black hostility among many to their Jewish financial controllers to the present day. The following Jewish entrepreneurs were among those who founded record labels featuring mainly Black talent: Herman Lubinsky (Savoy Records); the Braun family (DeLuxe Records); Hy Siegal, Sam Schneider and Ike Berman (Apollo Records); Saul, Joe, and Jules Bihari (Modern Records); Art Rupe (Specialty Records-- its biggest hits were those of Little Richard); Lev, Edward, and Ida Messner (Philo/
"The record producers were white," says Nadine Cohodas in her book about the Chess brothers, "their talent for the most part black, many from impoverished backgrounds and few with much formal education, living in a society that regarded them as second-class citizens. The deals between the two parties were not the negotiations of peers. The relationship coluld be paternalistic, even condescending. At Chess it sometimes looked as though Leonard and Phil gave their musicians an allowance rather than a salary." [COHODAS, N., 2000, p. 4]
The history of rock and roll is, of course," notes Rich Cohen, "riddled with pioneering white record men who built careers recording, and sometimes, exploiting black artists: Morris Levy, that burly, cigar-smoking product of the Brill Building, allegedly stealing writing credits from Frankie Lyman; Herman Lubinsky, the founder of Savoy Records in Newark, New Jersey, throwing around nickels as if they were manhole covers." [COHEN, R., 6-21-01]
In Philadelphia, in 1984 lawsuits were swirling around WMOT, a company that "developed a reputation as an aggressive independent record producer specializing in the 'Philly sound.'" Formerly owned by Steve Bernstein, Alan Rubens, and David Chacker, it was acquired by Michael Goldberg, Allen Cohen, and Jeff and Mark Salvarian. Lawsuits even named Israel's Bank Leumi among defendants in a scheme to use the record company to launder drug money. The central player in this accusation was Larry Lavin, who was indicted as the "kingpin of a 13-member [drug] ring that allegedly sold $5 million of cocaine a month." [DAUGHEN, 1984]
By 1978 president Oscar Cohen of the Associate Booking Corporation presided over "the country's biggest black talent booking agency." [SHAW, A, p. 419, p. 133] Recurrent, "mobbed-up" Morris Levy even eventually owned Birdland in its heyday, the famous jazz club. [WEXLER, p. 130] Levy also controlled the Roulette Record label. Nat "the Rat" Tarnopol headed the Brunswick label (Jackie Wilson was one of its most prominent African-American stars). Tarnopol was indicted twice in the 1970s "for using payola, drugola, and strong-arm goons to get radio airplay for Brunswick recording artists." [MCDOUGAL, p. 366]
An early and important supporter of disc jockey Alan Freed and his own empire was Leo Mintz, who owned a large record store near Cleveland's Black ghetto. Even earlier, Eli Oberstein founded Varsity records in the 1930s, Joe Davis launched Beach records in 1942, and "Jake Friedman had Southland, one of the biggest distributing outfits in the South." [SHAW, A., Honkers, p. 236] "The whole history of rock 'n' roll," noted the London Guardian in a review of Jewish author Michael Billig's book about the subject, "has been portrayed as white artists 'ripping off' black music. Only now [with Billig's volume] has the major Jewish contribution been acknowledged." [ARNOT, C., 10-4-2000, p. 6] Atlanta-based Mark Shimmel, for instance, is the CEO of LaFace Records, which headlines TLC, Usher, Tonik Braxton, GoodiMob, "and a raft of hot hip-hop artists ... He built his own company, managing talents as varied as John Denver and Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn ... He doesn't worry much about what he calls 'the white guy in the black music business.'" He has also worked with Huey Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles, and former Eagle Don Henley. [POLLAK, S., 1-7-00]
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Joseph Heller, formerly of Heller-Fischel, booked acts like Styx, the Electric Light Orchestra, Boz Scaggs, and a variety of others. "He represented top-drawer rock talent like Van Morrison, the Guess Who, Marvin Gaye, War, Elton John and Pink Floyd." [SNYDER, N., 2-19-01] Stretching out as dangerously as possible to make a buck, Heller eventually gravitated towards a relative goldmine in the Black ghetto-based "gangsta rap." He cofounded Ruthless Records and managed the pioneer rap group NWA (Niggaz With Attitude) from early in their careers. The musical genre of gangsta rap, notes Jory Farr, "thrives on misogyny, as well as homophobic and race-baiting rage ... [It] was the perfect music for [a] lifestyle loaded down ... with warnings of betrayal, murder, revenge, and a short life." [FARR, p. 70] "I believed that rap would become the most important music of the nineties," said Heller, "... [But] you can't sell two million rap records to kids in the inner city. That's a way to sell 200,000. You have to market it to the white kids." [FARR, p. 68, 71]
Heller hired Ira Selsky as his corporate attorney and an Israeli-born security chief named Michael Klein to ward off angry, exploited Blacks who quite literally walked into his office threatening to kill him. Rap star Ice Cube even threatened Heller in one of his recorded songs, prompting the Anti-Defamation League to flag it as anti-Semitic. Ruthless Records released a Jewish rap duo called Blood of Abraham. As Chuck D, the lead vocalist for the Black rap group Public Enemy, noted, "There's no way to get trained on the seamier elements of the music business being on the street -- that element is reserved for boardrooms." [D, CHUCK, p. 85] Those in Chuck D's reminiscences about "boardroom" behavior include Lyor Cohen (manager of Rush Productions, and an Israeli); Al Teller, an executive at MCA whose parents died in the Holocaust; Steve Ralbovsky of CBS; Bill Adler (a publicist); and Rick Rubin of Def Jam Records. (Jewish diamond dealer Jacob Arabo has made the news as a favored jewelry merchant to the Black rap crowd that seeks to symbolize wealth and power, or, as the New York Times put it, "the jeweler who gives most of today's leading rappers their shine." [CENTURY, p. 1]
In 2001, Heller was named the "Godfather of Latin Rap" by the Los Angeles Business Journal; he was joining in attempting to build a rap movement in the Latino market via Hit a Lick records. As the Journal noted:
"If Heller is convinced that Latin rap will emerge as the next big thing, it probably will be, said other music industry veterans ... Indeed, Heller is widely acknowledged as one of the key forces behind gangsta rap's crossover into the music mainstream ... While Heller has the second-tier title of chief operating officer, he acknowledges that the other partners 'generally run everything by me because of my experience and expertise.'" [SNYDER, N., 2-19-01]
By 2001 too, the aforementioned Lyor Cohen had catapulted to power in the Rap world. Rolling Stone even magazine featured an article about him, sub-titled How Lyor Cohen -- the White, Jewish Israeli-Raised President of Island Def Jam Records -- Became One of the Most Important Men in Hip-Hop, and Why He May Now Become One of the Most Important Men in Rock & Roll." Cohen started out promoting punk rock acts like the Circle Jerks, Social Distortion, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He then became president of the rap music label Def Jam in 1988 and soon had become "perhaps the most powerful white executive in an African-American business." (Def Jam was bought out by the Jewish-owned Polygram company in 1999). Irv Gott, a Black record producer, notes that Cohen is
"a white Jewish guy, but I think everybody respects him like he's black. He knows how to carry it too. He knows how to get gangster, how to fall back, when to shut the fuck up, whento say something. That's why other white executives are scared of him. He knows how to deal with the hoods, the criminal element."
Cohen, continued Rolling Stone, has broadened his musical base and "oversees an empire that includes hundreds of artists performing in dozens of genres, a roster that features PJ Harvey, American Hi-Fi, Shelby Lynne, Lionel Richie, Bon Jovi, Melissa Etheridge, Saliva, Ludacris, Kelly Price and Sisquo." Cohen's nickname is "Little Lansky" (after famed Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky). He was born in New York City "where his father, an Israeli, worked in the consulate." He was later raised on an avocado farm near Tel Aviv. [COHEN, R., 6-21-01]
Cohen has also been active in trying to readjust Black consciousness of Jewish exploitation of the African-American community. "In the late Eighties," notes reporter Rich Cohen,
"when [Public Enemy's] album It Takes a Nation of Milions to Hold Us Back was topping the charts, the group's minister of information, Professor Griff, made several anti-Semitic statements. As a Jewish exec working with the band, Cohen found himself in the middle of a rough, formative experience. 'When Professor Griff from Public Enemy said what he said, and it caused this whirlwind, the whole industry asked me, 'What the fuck are you doing?' says Cohen. 'Every president of every record company called and said, 'Drop them: But I believe part of being Jewish is education. And I believe I was instrumental in changing Public Enemy's views. I said, "Your voice is being muted because you say Jews are this or that. You can't make blanket statements. If you want your message out there" -- and it was profound, I think -- "stop generalizing." And I was the only Jew in their lives. What if I resigned? They would only be more alienated. I hadn't quite being a Jew. I can't quit being a Jew. Instead, I tried to have an impact. I felt like I was doing the right thing. Not just as a Jew, as a person. They had a big voice da nation of millions, to quote their album I had the Holocaust Museum [the Simon Wiesenthal Center] shut down, and we had a private tour. The first thing you see is a Jewish skull plus a black person's skull equals a baboon. The last thing is a monkey with enormous lips dressed with a Star of Daivd holding a trumpet and a sign saying, 'It's these Jews that are bringing in this music call jazz.'" [COHEN, R., 6-21-01]
Then there is former tax attorney Joe Weinberger who drives a Jaguar S-200, wears a diamond-studded Rolex watch and "fat gold rings," and carries a "9mm automatic pistol tucked in his pocket." As the Miami New Times notes about his rise to power in the African-American rap music world,
"In the early Nineties, Miami's reigning booty-rapper, Luther Campbell, hired Weinberger away from the carpeted hallways of a swash Brickell Key law firm to help manage a growing musical empire and its attendant lawsuits. Within five years Campbell was bankrupt and Weinberger had purchased the rights to his music. Rather than return to the comfortable confines of his former life, the 42-year old lawyer, who is single and childless, opted to launch his own label, Lil' Joe ... In a post bankruptcy fire sale overseen by Richard Wolfe [Weinberger's lawyer/partner, also Jewish], Weinberger bought the rights to 2 Live Crew music for about $800,000, plus the outstanding money he claims Campbell owed him." [KORTEN, T., 8-10-2000]
Weinberger has even been accused of ordering a car bombing and directing death threats against an employee.
Then there is Canada-born Bryan Turner, who founded Priority Records in 1985; he is also Jewish. [JEWHOO, 2000] By 1998, Priority had yearly sales of $250 million. As the Los Angeles Times notes:
"When the pioneering gangster rap group N.W.A. was looking for its first record deal, it found a distributor in Priority Records, which released an album so obscene it prompted a letter of complaint from the F.B.I. When Ice-T left Warner Brothers Records after police groups and the company's shareholders objected to his song 'Cop Killer,' he found a new home at Priority. When Suge Knight, the imprisoned head of Death Row Records, who is known for his pugnacious business tactics, was looking for his first deal, Priority gave it to him. Through all the violence and controversy of hardcore rap music -- from its roots in N.W.A to its current resurrection with Master P -- the Los Angeles label Priority Records has been a major player." [STRAUSS, N., 9-3- 98, sec. E, p. 1]
And as the Times noted on another occasion: "When Time Warner first parted ways with rapper Ice-T after the 'Cop Killer' flap and then with rapper Paris over a song that portrayed an assassination fantasy of President Bush, Turner wasted little time signing deals with both artists." [HOCHMAN, S., 7-30-95, CALENDAR, p. 82]
Jewish entrepreneur Steve Rifkind has also become very successful in the rap music field. In 1993, Rifkind founded and still heads Loud Records (its president is Rich Isaacson). Earlier, Rifkind began the Steven Rifkind Company, "a consulting firm specializing in Rap and R&B." Loud acts include Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Yvette Michelle, Funkmaster Flex, Alkaholics, Raekwon, and Xzibit. The company's value is estimated at about $100 million. [collegemusic.com/1-11-00] "Rifkind," notes the online magazine Entrepreneur,
"who trademarked the term 'Street Teams,' takes marketing to the street -- literally -- by hiring youths to tell their communities about his artists' music. 'My philosophy has always been 'You can't stop word-of-mouth, explains Rifkind, who has street teams across cities, distributing free singles to teenagers at housing projects and schools, and scrawling the names of his albums in the dust on parked trucks, which then serve as mobile billboards." [entrepreneur.com]
Yet another major Jewish rap entrepreneur is the aforementioned Rick Rubin, who, says Jory Farr, found his "biggest stars were former gangsters who used beats and rhymes to glamorize wealth, dope, and violence. Deciding who to sign could be a moral quagmire ... but Rubin wasn't one to be bothered by the trivia of social responsibility." [FARR, p. 126] "I could do anything I wanted," Rubin once said about his own family life in New York, "We were always upper middle class. We were wealthy for the community we lived in. In a sense I was spoiled." [FARR, p. 119]
Rubin's record company Def American is now called American Recording; at one time Geffen Records distributed Rubin's material. Earlier in his career he had signed bands like Slayer (whose lyrics exhorted "everything from virgin sacrifice and satanism to sadistic mutilations and the atrocities of Auschwitz" [FARR, p. 109]) and the Geto Boys, who "pushed misogyny and sadism to new depths." [FARR, p. 108] Rubin's own star rose so high that he eventually produced albums for Mick Jagger and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Troubles, however, came from a lawsuit against him by Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys and threats from the Meir Kahane-founded Jewish Defense League. Outraged by Rubin's promotion of violently anti-Jewish lyrics by Black ghetto groups, the Jewish group reportedly came looking to beat him up. Rubin couldn't understand their anger. He told an interviewer that
"They should've talked to me and found out what I felt before coming to attack me, because I was a JDO [Jewish Defense Organization] supporter. When I was at NYU I saw [right wing rabbi] Meir Kahane speak and he blew me away -- he was amazing ... After hearing him speak, I wanted to pack my bags and go to Israel ... I called the JDO several times, wanted to join, but they never returned my calls." [FARR, p. 123]
Among the most controversial "gangsta rap" labels was Death Row Records (including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, and Snoopy Doggy Dog). A noted earlier, Death Row products were distributed by the Jewish-dominated Time-Warner company until "pressure from stockholders after an outcry over the flagrantly violent and misogynist lyrics" of its stars. Time-Warner dropped the label, but eighteen months later it was picked up (for $200 million) by the Universal Music Group, a subsidiary of the Jewish Bronfman family's Seagram company. Universal too eventually abandoned the controversial label, only after "pressure from stockholders and regulators." [HELMORE, E., 8-29-97, p. 10]
Still another Jewish push -- more recently -- into the rap world is Koch Entertainment's In The Paint record label. Koch, one of the largest "independent music distribution companies," is headed by founder and CEO Michael Koch and President Bob Frank. [kochentertainment.com]
And lastly for the music scene, the president and CEO of the Recording Industry of America -- a lobbying group (with a staff of 72) for the big record companies -- is also Jewish, Hilary Rosen, who was described in 1997 by the Washington Post as "a powerful woman in an industry dominated by men. One of the most influential yet least known players in the U.S. entertainment behemoth." [WEEKS, p. C1] Rosen became the CEO when another executive, Jason Berman, stepped down from the position.
C. Delores Tucker, the founder of the National Political Congress of Black Women, has singled out Rosen's organization for special condemnation:
Lawyers for Jewish Defense League Leader Want FBI Files on Alleged Scheme to Extort Rap Stars,
TBO (Tampa Bay, FL), November 3, 2002
"In a bizarre twist to the case of a right-wing Jewish leader accused of trying to blow up Muslim-related sites, defense attorneys have requested records of an FBI probe into whether the suspect's group tried to shake down rap stars Tupac Shakur and Eazy-E. Jewish Defense League leader Irv Rubin is being held without bail along with group member Earl Krugel on charges of plotting to blow up a mosque and the office of an Arab American congressman. They have pleaded innocent. In papers filed this week in U.S. District Court, Rubin's lawyers asked a judge to order prosecutors to hand over records of the FBI probe, claiming it provides evidence of government bias against the league. An informant outlined the alleged extortion scheme during FBI interviews in 1996 about the murder of a figure in the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The informant said the JDL planned to make death threats against Shakur and Eazy-E, then offer them protection for a fee, the Times said, citing documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."
The following are quotes from Jewish author (and Contributing Editor to Rolling Stone magazine) Neal Kaplan's book Babes in Toyland. The Making and Selling of a Rock and Roll Band, Times Mirror/Random House, 1994:
"In the 1990 film Mo' Better Blues, Spike Lee crafted an artful if blazingly anti-Semitic portrait of the fictional Moe Flatbush, an avaricious Jewish club owner intent on swindling black jazzmen. The ferretlike, Yiddish-spouting Moe, played by John Turturro, was seemingly lifted straight from the pages of the anti-Semitic scred The Protocols of Zions." [KARLEN, N., 1994, p. 145]
"'I want everybody to try and find this book!' rapper Ice Cube said at a 1991 press conference where he held up a copy of The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a bogus piece of Nation of Islam scholarship." [KARLEN, N., 1994, p. 146]
"Easy-E, former leader of the gangsta rap group N.W.A., made a courageous stand, going so far as to appear on a Jewish rap group's single entitled 'Niggaz and Jews (Some Say Kikes).' Easy-E was not long after lectured by Omar Bradley, the mayor of his hometown of Compton, California, with 'I won't name the specific racial group that's using you, brother, but they are destroying us and having lunch and a bar mitzvah at the same time." [KARLEN, N., 1994, p. 146]
Def Jam, Lyor Cohen Guilty Of Fraud; Ja Rule Fights Patrick 'Dirty Dancing' Swayze,
MTV News, March 25, 2003
"Irv Gotti's business partners finished their latest round of fighting Friday in a New York federal court. Music label Island/Def Jam and company CEO Lyor Cohen were found liable for fraud, willful copyright infringement and wrongful interference with a contract in a $30 million lawsuit filed against them by TVT Records. At the eye of the storm were claims TVT had made, saying that Cohen tried to hinder the production and release of an album by Ja Rule's group, the Cash Money Click (a.k.a. CMC). 'The verdict against Mr. Cohen, personally, for fraud shows that there are some very serious problems confronting Def Jam and Universal Music Group,' said Peter Haviland, a trial lawyer for TVT Records."Press Release. Anti-Semitism-USA. ADL Says Record Label Response to Complaint About Public Enemy Song 'Swindler's Lust' Unacceptable,
Anti-Defamation League, New York, June 22, 1999
"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today said it found 'completely unacceptable' the response of Atomic Pop Records to concerns the title and lyrics of a new Public Enemy song issued on its label are anti-Semitic and offensive to Jews. 'Denying the existence of anti-Semitism doesn’t make the problem go away,' said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director ... In a June 17 letter to record company executives, Mr. Foxman said he was 'outraged and offended' by the title and lyrics to `Swindlers Lust’ on the new Public Enemy album There’s a Poison Goin On, which he said makes obvious references to Jews and the Holocaust. Mr. Foxman said the song’s lyrics contain 'classic anti-Semitic code words and seem to blame Jews for the plight of financially underprivileged Blacks.'"Chuck D Demands Apology For Charges Of Anti-Semitism Anti-Defamation League leader stands by assertion, says Public Enemy frontman is out of order,
VH1.com, July 15, 199
"Outspoken Public Enemy leader Chuck D is demanding an apology from the Anti-Defamation League, which last month accused the pioneering hip-hop group of anti-Semitism in the song 'Swindlers Lust.'. 'I want an apology now,' the 38-year-old rapper said Wednesday from Germany, where he is promoting Public Enemy's latest album, There's a Poison Goin' On, which contains the offending song. 'For me not to speak out on the one-sided persecution by the music industry, not to use this platform ... that's bullsh--.' A spare song that was initially released on the Internet in January, 'Swindlers Lust' blasts unnamed music-industry executives for what Chuck D (born Carlton Ridenhour) sees as 50 years of unfair compensation for black artists. ADL national director Abraham Foxman criticized the group in a June 17 letter to Al Teller, head of the Atomic Pop music label, which released the album ... Speaking from Jerusalem on Wednesday, Foxman said it was out of order for Public Enemy to call for the leading Jewish advocacy group to atone. 'I don't think there's anything to apologize for,' said Foxman, who was in Israel to meet with leaders in the administration of newly elected prime minister Ehud Barak. "Unfortunately [Chuck D] comes with some baggage. ... It's not that we come out of the blue or that he is a total innocent in this area.' Foxman was referring to a 1989 incident in which peripheral Public Enemy member Professor Griff (born Richard Griffin) told the Washington Times that he held Jews responsible for the 'majority of the wickedness that goes on across the globe.' Griff was dismissed from the politically charged group shortly after, but returned to the fold with last year's He Got Game album. He appears briefly on There's a Poison Goin' On. 'Swindlers Lust' contains lines such as 'Mo dollars, mo cents for the Big Six/ Another million led to bled claiming their innocence.' Chuck D has said the 'Big Six' refers to the six major music corporations — Sony, Time Warner, EMI, BMG, Universal and PolyGram (now known as the Big Five after last year's merger of Universal and PolyGram) — and Atomic Pop Vice President Liz Morentin explained that the 'million' lyric was a nod to the Million Man March of 1995. But Foxman alleged the proximity of the numbers 'six' and 'million' was a veiled reference to the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, and added that lines such as 'Dem own the banks' referred to a conspiracy theory that Jewish people control the financial industry. That the track appropriates the title of the celebrated Holocaust book and film 'Schindler's List' adds insult to injury, he said."
- scamming americans robbing palestinians
- followup: scamming americans robbing palestinians
- [wvns] not [only] the occupation corrupts: a critique of the Israeli left
- time for anti-zionist tea party
- one economic crisis or two?
- corrupt jewish social networking rules!
- jewish zionist dehumanization of non-jews
- robert lindsay: the jews under stalin
- zionists out of the peace movement: shahak on lying about Judaism
- french version: one economic crisis or two?
While it is good that an Iraqi magazine would devote an entire issue to Iraqi Jews, the summary below suggests that the coverage was superficial.
Before 1865 Arabic-speaking Jews in Mesopotamia were basically ethnically and culturally hardly different from Arabic-speaking Muslims or Christians.
In 1865 the Alliance Israélite Universelle opened a school in Baghdad so that French Jews could teach Baghdadi Jews how to be Jewish by French Jewish standards, which were not Zionist in that time frame.
This school set the evolution of Mesopotamian Jewish identity off on its own course different from social developments that we see among other Iraqis.
In the 19-teens an even more radical development took place as Zionists began to teach in Iraqi Jewish schools.
There is a lot of other material that would need to be addressed in a thorough study. In addtion other noteworthy Jews of Iraqi descent should be mentioned like Islamophobe Steven Emerson's sometime collaborator Rita Katz (née Gubbai), Oxford Professor Avi Shlaim, Israeli Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, Columbia Professor Ella Shohat, David Project anti-Arab hate-monger Eliad Moreh (Shmuel Moreh's grand-daughter?), English-language author/journalist Rachel Shabi.
If my Arabic were better, I would cover the descendants of Jewish Arabic communities much more on my blog for Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel because it is important to expose Zionist lies about Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Arabs.
| أول مجلة عراقية منذ أكثر من نصف قرن تكرس عددا لقضية يهود العراق | |
| يهود العراق : الهجرة الجماعية والعودة المستحيلة | 2009-08-16 |
| منذ تهجير يهود العراق في بداية الخمسينات من القرن الماضي ظلت قضية التهجير احدى الملفات الغامضة التي أهملتها الصحافة العراقية كقضية رأي عام، وظلت نوعا من "التابو" في ظل الانظمة الايديولوجية المتعاقبة على خلفية الصراع مع العدو "اسرائيل"، لكن هناك مؤشرات على التغيير الذي حدث في 9 نيسان إذ نما هامش من الحرية فتح مجالا لاعادة النظر في كثير من الاحداث السياسية ومراجعة التاريخ القريب للبلاد، ويأتي جهد مجلة "مسارات" في عددها الثالث عشر والمكرس عن يهود العراق بمثابة تحفيز للنقاش العام بشأن تاريخ العراق الحديث، ومراجعة لاسباب تشظي الذاكرة العراقية، لذا فإن مسارات كتبت على غلافها ان العدد خاص عن "الذاكرة العراقية". كما يأتي هذا العدد ايضا (كما تذهب الافتتاحية) كجزء من جهد مسارات لدراسة التنوع الثقافي في العراق والذي سبق لمسارات ان قدمت حلقات منه كما في عددها الثاني عن "الايزدية" وعددها التاسع عن "المندائية" وملفها المقبل عن "المسيحية" في العراق لا سيما في ضوء التهديدات التي تعرضت لها هذه المكونات الرافدينية الاصيلة. في الافتتاحية المعنونة "الذاكرة العراقية والتاريخ البديل" ذهب رئيس التحرير سعد سلوم الى ان الدرس الذي نتعلمه من الموجات المتعاقبة للتهجير القسري هو مدى انفصال المجتمع عن الدولة وكيفية تلاعب السياسة بمصير البشر، لقد كان يهود العراق كبش فداء للواقع السياسي في الشرق الاوسط ومكونات المجتمع ضحية للحكومات الايديولوجية المتعاقبة ولنموذج دولة برانية ومنفصلة عن المجتمع. ويدعو سلوم في افتتاحيته الى مراجعة تاريخنا القريب ودراسة أسباب تشظي الذاكرة العراقية وعواقب افلاس مشروعنا الحضاري وفشل دولة حداثتنا. اذ يقول "ومع ملف هذا العدد نبدأ دراسة جزء مهم من الذاكرة العراقية مهدد بالانقراض" لكن " لكن انتماء اليهود تجذر بالهوية العراقية من خلال ثقافة رافقت تحولات القرون والحضارات والوان الامبراطوريات المتعاقبة على ارض العراق ومن خلال اللغة وذكريات التعايش مع جيرانهم وسجلات احوالهم الشخصية وممتلكاتهم، والاهم من ذلك الاثر البابلي الذي لا يمحى في التوراة و التلمود" . ويذكر سلوم ان ما تبقى اليوم من يهود العراق المهاجرين من الجيل الاول قد تجاوزت اعمارهم السبعين عاما او أكثر، وهم الصلة الوحيدة مع الانتماء القديم للعراق والارتباط بالثقافة واللغة والهوية الرافدينية، اما الابناء والأحفاد فقد فقدوا الصلة والانتماء والذكريات، ومع انقراض الجيل الاول للمهاجرين سيمحى جزء مهم من الذاكرة العراقية، وتنشأ أجيال جديدة مندمجة بمجتمعات المنافي التي اصبحت اوطانا بديلة. ومثلما ينطبق ذلك على يهود العراق فأنه ينطبق على مسيحييه ومندائييه ومهاجريه من مختلف الاديان والطوائف والطبقات. وفي النهاية يدعو سلوم الى مراجعة تاريخنا واطلاق مشروع للحفاظ على الذاكرة العراقية التي دمرتها الأنظمة المتعاقبة. يبدأ الملف الرئيس لمسارات والمعنون (يهود العراق : الهجرة الجماعية والعودة المستحيلة) بمادة تاريخية للدكتور "سعد سلمان المشهداني" الاستاذ المتخصص بالحركة الصهيونية عن "تاريخ الطائفة اليهودية في العراق" التي تعد اقدم الطوائف اليهودية في العالم .وتحدث فيه عن الظروف التاريخية التي سمحت للأكاديميات البابلية بالازدهار لقرون عديدة، الامر الذي وفر مركزاً مرموقاً للحالة الثقافية ليهود العراق، وجعلت من التلمود البابلي شـريعة معيارية لليهود في العالم . ثم تطرق الكاتب الى أوضاع اليهود في العصر الإسلامي حتى الغزو المغولي كما فصل الكاتب أوضاع يهود العراق في العهد العثماني بعدها شرح الكاتب أوضاع يهود العراق في عهدي الاحتلال والانتداب البريطاني. تأتي بعد ذلك مادة البروفسور شموئيل موريه الاستاذ في الجامعة العبرية بأورشليم – القدس "يهود العراق ومساهمتهم في الثقافة العراقية". ويشرح البروفسور شموئيل في مادته الغنية و الشاملة كيف "كوّن المجتمع اليهودي العراقي طوال 2500 عام من تواجده، مجموعة متجانسة، واستطاع الحفاظ على هويته الدينية، وثقافته، وتقاليده على مر القرون، على الرغم من الغزوات المتعددة، والانتفاضات السياسية، والحروب، والفيضانات، والأوبئة الفتاكة". ويذهب الكاتب الى ان الجدل مستمر حتى يومنا هذا بشأن الأسباب التي أدت إلى إسدال الستار على الطائفة الموسوية بعد 2500 عاما من حياتها في العراق. اما مقال الدكتور خضر مزهر البدري المتخصص بالدراسات اليهودية فقد تناول "الانتماء الوطني ليهود العراق" وبدءه بالقول " لعل الأوان قد حان لإعادة اجراء تصنيف اليهود داخل اسرائيل على قاعدة ثنائية جديدة: اليهود العرب، واليهود غير العرب، ومن ثم بناء مواقف وسياسات جديدة على مقتضى معطيات التفكير من داخل هذه الثنائية". ويذهب الكاتب الى ان الرأي القائل بان الصهيونية كانت تقف وراء الهجرة اليهودية من العراق الى فلسطين، منذ القرن السابق، لهو رأي مبالغ فيه وتنقصه الدقة العلمية، إذ نحن ندرك (كما يقول) ان المؤسسة الصهيونية، لم تعر اليهود العرب عامة، والعراقيين خاصة، اي اهتمام، حتى بدأت الملاحقات الجماعية ليهود أوروبا، ومنهم يهود ألمانيا إبان الحكم النازي. في ذلك الوقت توجهت المؤسسة الصهيونية (الوكالة اليهودية) نحو اليهود العرب، ومنهم العراقيون، برغم ادعائها بانهم (مادة انسانية متدنية)، وذلك لحاجة المؤسسة لأيد عاملة رخيصة تشارك في بناء الدولة الجديدة. ويسهب الكاتب في الحديث عن الهجرة من العراق والمصاعب التي واجهت المهاجرين من يهود العراق لا سيما مع تميز هذه الطائفة من الناحية الاجتماعية والمالية مزودا حيثه بجداول واحصاءات استقاها من مصادر متنوعة. ويروي الباحث اليهودي المتخصص بالموسيقى العراقية "حسقيل قوجمان" ذكرياته عن المجتمع البغدادي الذي نشأ فيه وعن ظروف اعتقاله وهجرته الى اسرائيل، في مقال طويل عنونه بـ"من ذاكرة يهودي عراقي". يبدأه بالقول "إنني كأحد اليهود العراقيين لم أشعر بأنني اختلف عن الشعب العراقي بكل طوائفه، سوى بالطقوس والأعياد الدينية التي كانت تميزنا عن سائر السكان. فعاداتنا وتقاليدنا ومفاهيمنا وطعامنا وسوالفنا ولغاتنا كانت كلها مشابهة لعادات وتقاليد سائر سكان العراق" ويؤكد قوجمان ان التمييز ضد اليهود كان كان من جانب السلطات الحكومية، وليس من جانب الناس. فالناس لم يكونوا يشعرون بفروق في انتماءاتهم الدينية، وكان اليهود وغير اليهود إخوانا لا يتميز احدهم عن الآخر بسبب دينه". ويسرد الكاتب كيف انه عاش مع عائلته في بيوت مستأجرة في مناطق إسلامية بحتة وذكريات التعايش مع الجيران ويشرح قوجمان ويؤرخن لبداية التمييز ضد يهود العراق منذ السنة 1935 وتحدث قوجمان كجزء من سرد ذكرياته الثرة عن دور عائلات يهودية معروفة مثل عائلة ساسون وعائلة خلاصجي واستفاض في شرح دور اليهود في الابداع الموسيقي وتحدث عن خواطره وانطباعاته عن المغنية الشهيرة "سليمة مراد" وظروف انتماءه الى الحزب الشيوعي العراقي ثم ظروف اعتقاله بسبب انتماءه للحزب وخروجه من السجن العام 1961 وهربه الى ايران ومن ثم لجوئه الى اسرائيل 1962 ثم مغادرته اسرائيل الى بريطانيا بسبب رفضه تجنيد ابناءه في الجيش الاسرائيلي. وينهي مقاله المطول بالعبارة التالية "أنا يهودي من يهود العراق سابقا، واليوم متعدد الجنسيات والولاءات مثل الجيوش المتعددة الجنسيات في العراق، ومثل أغلبية حكام العراق الحاليين. ما زلت احتفظ بدفتر الجنسية العراقي، مما كان يمنحني حق التصويت في الانتخابات لو كنت من مؤيدي تلك الانتخابات. وأنا حاليا احمل الجنسية الإسرائيلية والجنسية البريطانية، واحمل الولاء قانونيا لكلا هاتين الدولتين. وبصفتي عراقي سابق ما زلت احتفظ ببعض المشاعر نحو العراق وشعب العراق". وجاءت مادة الصحفي المتمرس بشؤون يهود العراق "شامل عبد القادر" لتفصح عن اسرار تهجير يهود العراق ويتحدث الكاتب في مقاله عن خفايا دور الشرطة السرية العراقية 1950-1952 في كشف شبكات التهريب والتهجير والتجسس الاسرائيلي وتحليل الدوافع القائمة تهجير يهود العراق بالقنابل والأرهاب الى اسرائيل عام 1950. وقد جاء المقال نتيجة جهود (لم يستطع نشرها مسبقا) تعود الى العام 1998 عندما التقى الكاتب عقيد الشرطة المتقاعد عبد الرحمن السامرائي معاون الشعبة الخاصة التابعة لمديرية شرطة بغداد الذي اخذ على عاتقه ومعه نفر قليل من افراد هذه الشعبة بتعقب ومطاردة كبار قادة الحركة الاستخباراتية والصهيونية في العراق واحالتهم الى التحقيق والمحاكمات. وقد زود المقال بصور نادرة تكشف الاسلحة المضبوطة في المعابد اليهودية وفريق الكشف عن الاسلحة. وفي مسار السينما تناول للسينما الوثائقية، من خلال فيلم ً المخرج العراقي سمير جمال الدين (ولد في سويسرا واصل عائلته من النجف) في فيلمه ”انسى بغداد”، والذي يتناول قضية اليهود العراقيين في اسرائيل : ، يسوح بنا المخرج وهو يبحث عن رفاق أبيه من الشيوعيين اليهود، والذين عرفوا بنضالهم ووطنيتهم وتعلقهم بوطنهم العراق، حكايات أبيه أغوته بالمغامرة، لم يكن يتصور أن الأمر سيتحول إلى فيلم سينمائي وثائقي طويل، حمل كامرته، وفريق عمله القاصد ارض ”العدو إسرائيل” ليلتقي أربع شخصيات عراقية يهودية، وهم كل من سمير نقاش وشمعون بلاص وسامي ميخائيل و موشي حوري، وأيلا حبيبة شوحات، ولدوا كلهم في بغداد، وشبوا في مرابعها، باستثناء الناقدة والباحثة شوحات، انه فيلم عن صدى سيرة وطن يرويها قصاصون بمرارة. وفي مسار رحلة قدمت مسارات مادة متفردة عن "رحلة ابراهيم من أور الى حران" حيث تكتب الآثارية العراقية الدكتورة سحر نافع شاكر عن دلائل ميدانية تقتفي آثار إبراهيم في رحلته التوراتية من أور إلى حرّان، فالامر المستغرب بنظر الكاتبة أن رواية رحلة إبراهيم التي وردت الإشارة إليها في الكتاب المقدس في سفر التكوين أول أسفار العهد القديم (التوراة)، افتقرت إلى الدراسات العلمية الدقيقة والتحقق الميداني، وإلى قيام متخصصين من دارسي اللاهوت والمؤرخين وواضعي الخرائط بتنظيم رحلة ميدانية حقيقية، تتتبع آثار خطوات تارح وابنه إبراهيم على سطح الأرض، بدءاً من مدينة أور الكلدانية. وسعت مقالة الكاتبة للإجابة عن هذه الأسئلة من خلال تحديد الطريق الذي سلكه إبراهيم في رحلته التوراتية من خلال مكتشفات آثارية في قلب البادية الشمالية العراقية. اذ تأخذنا الكاتبة برحلة ميدانية قامت بها الكاتبة بنفسها والنص مزود بصورا آثارية تنشر لاول مرة احتواها تصميم المقال. أما كتاب العدد فهو الكتاب الجريء الذي رفضت نشره دور النشر العربية رغم ترجمته للانكليزية والعبرية والالمانية وهو كتاب (رحلة إلى قلب العدو : ريبورتاج رحلة ليست بالضرورة "غير" سياسية) والذي يتحدث فيه والي عن ظروف رحلته الى اسرائيل، ولقاءة بمجموعة من المثقفين الاسرائيليين مثل البروفيسور آماتزيا برعام، أحد اهم المتخصصين بالشأن العراقي والمعروف بانه مريض بصورة مزمنة بالعراق او هو عاشق مجنون لكل ما له علاقة بوادي الرافدين. وليورا لوكيتز المتخصصة بالشأن العراقي و ساسون سوميخ المولود في بغداد العام 1933 من عائلة يهودية من الطبقة الوسطى، والذي غادر العراق إلى إسرائيل ضمن موجة الهجرة للطائفة اليهودية العام 1951 ويعد اليوم "أحد كبار الباحثين في الأدب العربي عالمياً"، كما جاء في جائزة الدولة للنقد التي منحتها له إسرائيل العام 2005 وغيرهم. وخلال لقاءاته بعدد من يهود العراق وجد المؤلف الهوية العراقية متجذرة في اعماقهم، فكأنهم قلبوا كلمات الأغنية التي رددها أجدادهم الأوائل قبل ألفي عام، "على أنهار بابل جلسنا...وتذكرنا صهيون"، هذه المرة يغنون وقد أخذتهم نوستالجيا الحنين لتنفس هواء الطفولة: "على أنهار صهيون جلسنا.. وتذكرنا بابل ـ ون". ذلك هو الانطباع الذي منحني إياه لقائي باليهود الذين هاجروا من العراق، (كما يقول والي) بعضهم هاجر قبل نصف قرن، وبعضهم أكثر أو أقل. في كل القصص التي رووها أعادوا لي ذكرى بلاد أُريد لها أن تكون مختلفة، بلاد كان يمكن أن تكون كل شيء بإسثتناء الصورة التي تحولت عليها اليوم. مواد متنوعة احتوى عدد مسارات ايضا على مواد أخرى ضمن الابواب الثابتة للمجلة حيث تضمن مسار العصر مادة مترجمة عن الانكليزية للكاتب جاك لوت بعنوان "صراع من اجل الحضارة" كما تضمن مسار العصر حوارا اجراه رئيس تحرير المجلة مع المؤرخ الاميركي ولتر راسل ميد بعنوان "الدكتاتوريات ليست هي العدو الوحيد للديمقراطية" حول الصراع الطائفي في العراق وآثره على مستقبل الشرق الاوسط. كما ترجم "جودت جالي" عن الفرنسية مقدمة الجزء الثاني من مختارات من أعمال فوكو تحت عنوان " فوكو :انظمة السلطة ..انظمة الحقيقة". كما تضمن مسار الشعر قصائد للشاعرات: سارة كيرش، وهيلدا دومين وروز اسلندر ترجمها عن الالمانية الشاعر عباس خضر. و احتوى العدد على مقال كتبته الكاتبة العراقية المقيمة في باريس "لطفية الدليمي" عن زيارتها لقبر رامبو الشاعر الفرنسي الشهير، تناقش فيه علاقة رامبو بالأمكنة والترحال والحب والموت. تناول مسار الفن خبرة فنان العدد حيدر رؤوف، حيث كتب عامر خليل عن تجربة الخزف عند حيدر رؤوف. كما اجرت مسارات حوارا مع الفنان حول تجربته في النحت. وفي مسار النقد كتب علي شبيب ورد " التجريب داخل سلة المهملات" وهو مقال عن السرد العراقي القصير بعد انعطاف 2003 . وجاء مسار الفوتو عن تجربة المصور سلام ابراهيم في شهادة كتبها عن تذكير الحب والتصوير. وأختتم العدد مفيد الجزائري وزير الثقافة السابق ورئيس لجنة الثقافة في البرلمان بمقال عنوانه "ثروتنا الاخرى" تحدث فيه عن الحال المحزنة للآثار في العراق في وقت يتباهى فيه العراقيون بكونه ورثة الحضارات الرافدينية العظيمة حيث دعا الجزائري الى وضع حد لذلك وتسديد الدين الثقيل الذي في رقابنا.. لآثارنا. * مسارات : مجلة فكرية ثقافية تصدر عن مؤسسة مسارات للتنمية الثقافية والاعلامية، صدر عددها الاول في 9 نيسان 2005، يرأس تحريرها الكاتب والصحفي العراقي سعد سلوم Saad_saloom@yahoo.com. اتجاهات حرة- بغداد | |
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