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Report shows that London has become the epicenter of Hamas activity, Jews feel “under attack”

March 1, 2010

We’ve told you before how the British legal system is allowing itself to be used to harass Israelis — often at the behest of pro-Palestinian groups that are openly supportive of terror groups like Hamas.

Now, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, a research center near Tel Aviv, has released a report showing that, beyond having a conveniently quirky judiciary, London has become the epicenter of Hamas’ political, propaganda and legal activities in Europe (click the link – that’s basically the report’s title).

Hamas operatives have been particularly successful in controlling the discourse regarding Arabs in Israel, and initiating widespread anti-Zionism throughout the UK.

Ironically, Hamas’ success is due to its taking advantage of Britain’s open society:

1. Political freedom and freedom of speech prevailing in Britain allows Hamas to incite against Israel, despite Hamas’ designation as a terrorist organization by the European Union. Though activities by terror groups is technically illegal in Britain, the legal system has shown great tolerance, which has been exploited by radical Islamic elements, including Hamas.

2.  A broad infrastructure of Hamas activists, supporters, and collaborators took refuge in Britain in the 1990s, which work with radical leftist organizations that are hostile to Israel and the West. This enables Hamas to reach British political, media and academic elites.

3. The UK is one of the world’s media hubs, especially for Arab s newspapers, and broadcast and electronic media. This gives Hamas access to key outlets to spread its messages throughout the Muslim world.

The report notes that much of Hamas’ propaganda work is targeted at children and that the organization is able to get money and supplies “for Gaza” (really, for Hamas) from British organizations and politicians.

None of this would come as a surprise to brilliant British firebrand Melanie Phillips, whose book “Londonistan” argued that British “benign neglect” has allowed radicals to gain way too much of a foothold in the city. In her blog, Phillips quipped that, now, it should be called “Hamasistan.”

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Britain’s Jewish community reports feeling “under attack.” According to London’s Independent, Lord Mitchell, a Labor MP, ” praised the multi-cultural nature of London but pointed to rising incidents of anti-Semitism.”:

Stickers such as “death to Jews” had been displayed at some of the UK’s leading university campuses and had been “slow to be removed”, he said.

He told peers in a debate on tolerance in British society that universities had a “duty of care to all students and in many cases they are slow to uphold this duty”, citing free speech as the reason for not interfering.

Lord Mitchell said: “It may well come as a shock that the Jewish community in this country feels under constant attack.

“I don’t want to overstate the case but many Jewish friends have said to me that they felt more frightened, more threatened, than at any time in their lives.”

The Book of Esther and Purim teach that God’s face may be hidden, but His redemptive power is real

February 26, 2010

“Mishe’nichnas Adar marbim b’simcha!” — “When Adar arrives, our joy increases”

– timeless Purim song

You may already know that Purim–which begins Saturday night–is often called the most joyous of Jewish holidays (it’s certainly the most raucous). But as much as merriment is at the center of the celebration, the holiday really marks the hidden ways in which God redeems and what Esther 9:1 calls “v’nahafoch hu” (“turning upside down”) –  the ways in which those who oppress and persecute will eventually have the tables turned on them and face Divine justice.

Adar brings joy

Purim itself is celebrated on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar* (which corresponds to this Saturday night and Sunday), but, as the holiday’s best-known Purim song tells us, joy increases as soon as the month of Adar dawns — culminating in the wild festivities of Purim, in which Israeli cities and Jewish neighborhoods around the world are filled with little children dressed as everything from the heroic Queen Esther or the sagely Mordechai to little policemen, tiny brides (always a hit with little girls) or, charmingly, High Priests; families rushing around delivering gifts of food and candy to one another; and more than a few tipsy stragglers singing and dancing on their way to a festive meal.

Just as stores in America begin filling with costumes in the month before Halloween, in Israel, stores begin stocking costumes as spring begins to dawn (the holiday falls four weeks before Passover, which usually marks the end of Israel’s rainy season).

The first holiday of exile

Purim is the first holiday of the Jewish exile. Following the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., the Jews were driven out of Israel and a good portion settled in Babylonia, then a part of the Persian empire. Through a series of seemingly unrelated events, a young Jewish woman named Hadassah was conscripted into the King’s harem and eventually became Queen. Her uncle Mordechai  directed her to hide her Jewishness and, in fact, she gave her name as “Esther,” which means “hidden” in Hebrew.

As Esther endures life in the palace, Mordechai–the leader of the Jewish community–runs afoul of the King’s newly empowered (and evil) viceroy, Haman, to whom Mordechai refused to bow down (since Jews do not prostrate themselves before anything but God). Using language eerily familiar to any scholar of anti-Semitism, Haman then bribes the king to allow him to destroy the nation who is “scattered and dispersed,” who have their own laws, who live apart, who are different.

“Who knows if this isn’t precisely why you’re here”

Mordechai tells Esther to intercede with the king, but she resists, pointing out that she will likely be killed if she does. But her uncle chastises her, reminding her that her fate lies with her people and, moreover, that the real reason she ended up queen may be precisely so that she could be in a position to save her people.

And, he tells her, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.”

God is hidden, but His hand is not

And this is the real message of Purim. Esther is the only book in the Hebrew Bible that doesn’t mention God–an allusion to the fact that, in our world, God’s face is hidden from us. And yet it is clear that His hand is at work throughout. Though the book itself is short, the events it describes took place over the course of a decade or so. The Jewish people find themselves an uprooted nation, assimilating into a foreign culture, and then suddenly find themselves singled out and in mortal peril and–at the last moment–they’re not only delivered from danger, but their enemies are delivered into their hands.

Haman was bent on annihilating the Jews–and he amassed the worldly power to do it. Nonetheless, God–in the most dramatic way–stymied his “fool-proof” plans and delivered him into the hands of the tiny, stricken nation he’d persecuted.

Knowing where Power really lies

Esther faced the tyrannical would-be murderer in this world, but she knew where real power lies: Before confronting Haman, she fasted and prayed for three days, and the Jewish community fasted with her, knowing that the confrontation depended on the will of God. (Esther 4:16)

Mordechai, the leader of the Jewish people, refused to bow to the second-most-powerful man in a huge empire. Haman expected him to quake, but Mordechai knew that there is only one real Source of Power and only one Being worth fearing, and this meant that Haman didn’t scare him. As the psalmist wrote, “In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 56:11)

We wish all of Israel a freilechen Purim, a joyous holiday, and pray for the day in which we will all live and act with the knowledge–and courage–that Esther and Mordechai teach us.

* Except in walled cities or formerly walled cities (like Jerusalem or Jaffa), where it is celebrated on the 15th.

Bombing attempt at Cairo’s main synagogue

February 24, 2010

A clumsy attempt to bomb Cairo’s historic main synagogue failed Sunday when a make-shift explosive device in a suitcase failed to ignite fully after an assailant hurled it at the house of worship from window above it. There were no injuries or damage.

According to a police report, early Sunday morning, a man entered a hotel on the fourth floor of a building across from the synagogue, ostensibly to check in. As he was going through the process, he abruptly threw his suitcase out the window (toward the synagogue below).

The man’s suitcase held four containers of gasoline, each of which was attached to a glass bottle filled with sulfuric acid. Police theorized that the bottles of acid were meant to shatter on impact, thereby igniting the makeshift bomb. Instead, the bag fell onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel and briefly caught fire before being extinguished.

The synagogue, Shaar Shomayim (“Gates of Heaven”), was built in 1899 and was once the largest building on its main downtown street. Its style is intended to evoke the look of ancient Egyptian temples. See photos of the beautiful building and read about its history here.

Egypt was long home to a thriving Jewish community with a storied history that included some of the Jewish world’s greatest leaders, including Maimonides, the great 12th century philosopher who is still considered the premiere codifier of Jewish law. Prior to the establishment of Israel, the community numbered around 80,000 people.

The Jews were kicked out after the establishment of the modern state of Israel, however. According to Ha’aretz, only several dozen–mostly elderly–Jews remain in the country. A number of heavily guarded synagogues remain.

Authorities say bomb that killed 9 in India probably intended for Jewish center nearby

February 15, 2010

Indian intelligence has said that it is a probability that a bomb that killed 9 and wounded 53 people at a cafe in Pune, India, on Saturday was meant to be detonated at the local Chabad House, located several dozen meters from the site of the blast. Police say a bomb that ripped through a crowded restaurant in western India on Saturday was meant to explode at the local Chabad house, Ha’aretz reports.

The bomb at the German Bakery cafe was India’s first terror attack since the 2008 Mumbai massacre, in which at least 173 people were murdered in coordinated attacks on hotels and other public venues. The attack also targeted the Mumbai Chabad house, a Jewish house of worship and visitor’s center, where six Jews were murdered, including Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah, who was six months pregnant.

Chabad, a Chassidic group dedicated to outreach among Jews, maintains hospitality centers in communities around the world. There are a number of centers in India, although there are few indigenous Jews, to provide kosher food, community, and assistance to the many Israelis who travel there.

The bomb went off after a waiter apparently opened a package containing the explosive device. According to officials, the bomb may have been left for someone to pick up and take to the adjacent Chabad center before it was inadvertently detonated.

Following the attacks, life has not returned to “normal” for Jews in Mumbai, Ha’aretz reported earlier this month:

Yael Jirhad, who opened the Indian chapter of the Women’s International Zionist Organization exactly one year prior to the November 2008 terror attack, said the community has been forced to cope with increased security measures at Jewish institutions around the large city.

UPDATE: 

According to the Associated Press, however, Israeli officials are questioning the Indian security forces’ determination:

Nitzan Nuriel, head of counterterrorism at Israel’s National Security Agency, said the Pune attack wasn’t directed at Chabad.

“The attack in India was not directed at Chabad house, even though Chabad houses appear on the potential lists of targets maintained by some of the groups that operate in the area,” Nuriel said.

Stabbing attempt thwarted in Hebron’s Jewish neighborhood

February 14, 2010

A few days after an IDF soldier was stabbed to death by a Palestinian police officer near the Biblical city of Shechem, Israeli security forces shot and killed a Palestinian terrorist on Friday as he attempted to stab an Israeli soldier during a riot in Hebron, Haaretz reports.

No soldiers were injured in the attack, which occurred after their unit had been called in response to rocks being hurled at the home of a Jewish family in Hebron’s old city. The Palestinian attacker was shot in the stomach by IDF forces and later succumbed to his wounds at a hospital.

The Jewish family lives in the  Avraham Avinu (“Father Abraham”) neighborhood, which is a short walk from the Cave of the Patriarchs, which Jewish, Christian and Muslim tradition identify as the resting place of the Jewish forefathers and foremothers, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. (Rachel’s tomb is near Bethlehem.)

Hebron had a continuous Jewish presence from the Biblical era until 1929, when 29 members of the Jewish community were murdered during Arab riots, and many others were injured. The survivors were forced out. When Israel re-gained control of Hebron in 1967, Jews went back to the ancient city and re-established the ancient community. Their presence is controversial and the city is a frequent flashpoint for tension and violence from those who object to a Jews living in the city.

Netanyahu’s son wins Jerusalem Bible quiz

February 8, 2010

Sara and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flank their 15-year-old son, Avner, as he is named winner of the Jerusalem Bible Quiz. Photo: Isranet

One of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s sons beat out 50 other teenagers to win the Jerusalem region Bible quiz. Avner Netanyahu, 15, will represent the city at the Israeli national competition, where he will compete to represent the Jewish state at this year’s International Bible Quiz, an annual worldwide contest on knowledge of the Hebrew Bible.

The contest includes contestants from Jewish communities around the world and covers the whole of the Hebrew Bible. It is held in Jerusalem each year on Yom Ha’aztmaut, Israeli Independence Day. Since Israelis win so often, there is a separate contest for the top non-Israelis as well.

The Bible contest is a national cultural event founded by David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister: Contestants come to Israel for special events in the weeks before and after the quiz, traveling through the Holy Land, meeting dignitaries, participating in special programs, and going through preliminary tests that winnow the contestants down to the finalists, who appear on the nationally televised quiz. The International contest is always held in Jerusalem, while the Diaspora contest travels to different cities around the country.

The International contest’s winner receives a four-year college scholarship to Bar Ilan University, Israel’s one overtly religious university, which is located just outside Tel Aviv.

The Prime Minister usually asks at least one question during the contest, so Netanyahu may end up quizzing his own son.

NY town’s Haitians and Chassidic Jews joining forces to help earthquake survivors

January 22, 2010

A half-century or so ago, New York’s Rockland County was pastoral, and its population was almost entirely non-ethnic white. Towns like Monsey, Ramapo and Spring Valley were “largely rural intersections.” Not so in 2010: Today, the area–around an hour’s drive from New York City–is home to a  mix of Latinos, Blacks, and Orthodox Jews, including many cloistered, fervently Orthodox Chassidic sects. Around half the population is of Haitian descent.

Normally, the members of the various sects have very little to do with one another (“I would say there’s no hate, but there’s no interaction,” one local described the area) — but the tragedy in Haiti is bringing them together, the New York Times reports:

…disaster makes strange bedfellows. Hence the cast of characters in a community where the melting pot usually melts only so far and the Chassidim and the Haitians invariably find themselves in separate worlds or competing ones. Nevertheless, for a day, there was the Haitian mayor, Noramie F. Jasmin, and her Chasidic administrative assistant, Aron Wieder, directing traffic inside the cavernous lobby, the urgency of the moment looming larger than the cultural chasm that usually separates them.

They–groups of Chassidic Jews and members of the Haitian community–joined forces to send a plane filled with volunteers,  including nurses and firefighters, to aid the stricken island. In this case, the sponsoring organization was Haitian-American but the money for the flights and accommodations was supplied by Chassidic Jews. The Times described the scene:

…bearded Chassidic men in their long black coats and a largely black crowd of workers and volunteers scurrying around the lobby, which was filled with boxes of medicine, cotton balls and crutches, big black suitcases and an air of incessant activity.

There are already plans for other missions, including one of local doctors.

Cyber-attackers target UK Jewish newspaper

January 20, 2010

By now, Jewish organizations are accustomed to having to deal with all sorts of idiocy–sometimes merely annoying and sometimes downright dangerous–coming from those who oppose the existence of the Jewish state.

“Cyber-attacks” are nothing new — some clever anti-Israel kid hacks his way into a Jewish or Israeli website and scrawls something about Palestinians being wonderful or Israelis being awful. More than once, they’ve been somewhat clever (if you’re going to be a vandal, might as well be an interesting one…).

The latest victim of such a prank is the website of the Jewish Chronicle, the newspaper of the Jewish community in the U.K.:

Hackers managed to place a message on the home page in support of “Palestinian Mujahaeeds”.

The site was immediately suspended while technicians investigated if the site’s security had been breached.

Fortunately, they quickly established that no serious breach had taken place and no damage was done. Early indications are that the perpetrator was operating from a computer in Turkey.

This really puts the lie to those who claim that there’s no anti-Semitism to be found among those who oppose the Jewish state. If so, why go after the newspaper for the British Jewish community? It’s not an Israeli site. This is particularly odd given how tepid support for Israel can be among English Jews. Earlier this week, Israeli uber-blogger David Bogner wrote about a trip to the UK:

So it came as a bit of a surprise when I found the tiny U.K. Jewish community (less than 300,000 strong as of the last census), to be absolutely absent from public discourse in support of Israel.  In England, there seems to be a political price to pay for being pro-Israel… and if anything, there seems to be value on the side of those who are critical of Israel.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Jews in the U.K. seem to be fairly equally split between being actively critical of the Jewish State, and being apologetically supportive of it (albeit in the safe privacy of their homes and synagogues).

Intimidation has its rewards.

Fortunately, a staffer from the Chronicle tell us that the British Jews acted rather like Israelis in response to the cyber-vandals: “We were all very pleased that in the 24 hours after we went back online we experienced an all-time high in number of visitors. Take that, hackers!”

Watch video of Yemenite Jews coming home

January 7, 2010

We told you how Jews in Yemen need to get out, and how a bunch got out last year. Watch this video about some of the Yemenite Jews who came home last year through a quiet operation run by the Jewish Agency, IFCJ’s partner organization.

If you want to learn more, read about IFCJ’s On Wings of Eagles program.

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