Prof shouts ‘Death to Israel’
Julio Pino
Last week, former Israeli deputy consul general Ishmael Khaldi – a Muslim Bedouin – was giving a lecture at Kent State University on his experiences as an advocate for Israel. Khaldi is a living, breathing embodiment of Israel’s values of free exercise of religion and equality of opportunity.
A professor at Kent State, one Julio Pino, doesn’t see it that way. During the question-and-answer portion of the lecture, after asking a question, Pino shouted “death to Israel” and stormed out of the hall.
“Death to Israel.” From a professor. A tenured professor, in case you needed to ask.
And that’s not to mention Dr. Pino’s past associations with jihadist websites, questionable behavior, and radical statements.
This is what pro-Israel students face on campus from hostile academics and anti-Israel student groups. Part of our mission of advocacy must be to educate our young people to stand up to the falsehoods and the bullying – and to insist that our elected leaders take action against taxpayer-funded institutions which continue to employ bigots like Julio Pino. Are you listening, Ohio?
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Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011 at 10:57 AM | Rabbi Jonathan Greenberg
How to respond to hatred of Israel
As a partnership of Christians and Jews who publicly and proudly stand for Israel and help Jews in need around the world, our words are often challenged. That comes with the territory. Unfortunately, the “wild west” of new media – communications channels like Facebook and Twitter — provides a vehicle not just for lovers of Israel, but for those who hate the Jewish state as well. 
That point was again illustrated to us last week, when terrorist attacks hit southern Israel. In response to the attacks, our Stand for Israel Facebook page was bombarded with the vilest forms of comments. “Israelis will consider Hitler very merciful compared to what we [Egyptians] will do to you,” and “I will not rest until every Israeli rat is burning,” are just two of them. These slurs came from a wide range of people, from Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt to white supremacists in the U.S.
While we did our best to delete these despicable comments as quickly as they were posted, I was shaken by the depth of their hatred. And I was also reminded just how critical Stand for Israel and all of Israel’s supporters are for defending Israel and the treasured values it shares with those that support her.
Our response to hate speech campaigns like this has to involve more than just deleting or challenging despicable anti-Israel statements. It must involve clear, decisive, and overwhelming support for Israel, based on the facts underlying the Israeli-Arab conflict. Those facts, which we work hard to keep you informed of, show that that Israel is on the right side of history, and has successfully retained the moral high ground in face of the cruelest and most evil actions of its enemies.
Also, we cannot resort to the type of hate speech our enemies use. When I was a teenager and was verbally attacked for being Jewish I asked my rabbi how to respond. He said to me, “Amichai, when a dog barks at you, you don’t bark back.” That’s a lesson that has stuck with…
Read More » Comments (46) »Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 at 7:29 AM | Amichai Farkas
Auschwitz violin entertains IDF troops
Auschwitz Death Camp
The Auschwitz orchestra was one of many ways the death camp’s commanders humiliated their Jewish prisoners. In the early morning hours, as concentration camp prisoners left for their hard labor, the Auschwitz orchestra, made up of a select group of Jewish prisoners, was forced to stand near the main gate of Auschwitz and play music. They would also play in the evening, when the prisoners returned, many of them carrying their fellow workers who did not survive the day of work.
Several weeks ago, famous violinist Shlomo Mintz played one the violins that belonged to a member of the Auschwitz orchestra in front of Israel Defense Forces cadets and officers:
Comments (1) »An emotionally moving closure took place recently during the graduation ceremony of the “Edim Bemadim” (witnesses in uniform) project, when famous violinist Shlomo Mintz played one of the violins which belonged to a member of the ghetto orchestra in front of Israel Defense Forces cadets and officers…
Weinstein decided more than a decade ago to collect violins lost or damaged during the Holocaust and renovate them. The idea came from one of his students, a young non-Jewish man who came to Israel in the mid 1990s from Germany and became a passionate Zionist.
“He’s the one who told me that there are probably quite a few deserted violins which used to belong to murdered Jewish musicians, both in Germany and in other countries. I decided to look for them and renovate them after performing at an event dedicated to this issue in the city of Dresden,” says Weinstein.
Since then he has collected and renovated 28 violins. They came from people who kept them in their attic, people who didn’t know what to do with the broken tools, which found their way to them under fascinating circumstances.
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 at 4:04 PM | David Kuner
P.A. trains children to die for Allah
Palestinian child martyr (screen capture)
Incitement to violence by the Palestinian Authority continues to be one of the biggest challenges facing Israel today. Palestinian media and school curriculum disparage the State of Israel and indoctrinate children to hate the Jewish people and aspire to martyrdom in the name of Islam:
Comments (11) »A Palestinian Authority kindergarten showed off what its young students had learned over the past year by having the five-year-olds act out scenes of terror and death for their families. The parents were moved to tears upon seeing their children pretend to die as “martyrs,” PA media reported.
During the graduation ceremony two plays were performed – one based on “Little Red Riding Hood,” the second, “The Martyr’s Wedding,” a story glorifying death in battle with Israel for the sake of Islam.
“Another performance named ‘The Martyr’s Wedding’ delighted the audience due to the role-play of the children, whose acting depicted the reality of roadblocks, children, occupation, soldiers, and the children’s death as Martyrs,” wrote the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, in a report picked up and translated by Palestinian Media Watch.
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 4:59 PM | David Kuner
Israeli historian attacked by Islamists in U.K.
Here’s a harrowing story from last month about the state of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the U.K.: 
“It’s very sad but I felt physically threatened in the heart of London”, [Israeli historian] Benny Morris told me in a telephone conversation.
Several days ago, on his way to speak at the London School of Economics, the Israeli historian encountered the tragic reality of “Londonistan”, as the journalist Melanie Phillips labelled the British Islamization.
On the way to his talk, Morris was almost lynched by a mob of leftists and jihadists. He was walking with his wife towards the LSE, when he was accosted by a group of keffiyah-ed Muslims who, recognising him, started hurling abuse, shouting and screaming in his face that he was a “fascist”, “murderer”, “racist” and that UK shouldn’t have let him speak.
Later in the article, Morris comments:
“I felt like a Jew in Berlin in the 20’s … Freedom of expression has been severely limited in Europe about the conflict in the Middle East. Israel is an absolute taboo in Europe, as well as criticism of Islam and of the Arab world. European leaders never say ‘Islamic terrorism’, but ‘International terrorism’.”
No one covers the disturbing rise of anti-Semitism in the U.K. better than the above-mentioned Melanie Philips — if you haven’t bookmarked her blog already, do it today. And check out Front Page, where there’s more on this sad and shocking story.
Comments (21) »Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 at 2:41 PM | David Kuner
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