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Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's Journal
Behind the Aegis's Journal
December 23, 2017
After beating anti-LGBT Roy Moore, Doug Jones son comes out as gay
After his father beat the most anti-LGBT Senate candidate in recent history, Alabama’s Doug Jones’ son Carson has come out as gay.
Vehemently anti-LGBT Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore has refused to concede, despite being behind by a margin of more than 20,000 votes.
But that hasn’t stopped Democrat Doug Jones and his son Carson celebrating victory.
Speaking to Grindr’s magazine INTO, Carson has opened up about being gay and the support he has given to his father, and support received in return.
moore (lost...hahahahaha)...
December 23, 2017
LGBT radio station launches in Tunisia despite fear of violence
An online LGBT radio station has launched in Tunisia, believed to be the first in the Arab world.
The LGBT group Shams set up the radio station which hopes to deal with opposition to LGBT rights in the North African state.
The Shams Rad station has the slogan “dignity, equality”, and prominent activist will present shows.
Despite the launch, the station and those running it have still been receiving threats.
Director general Bouhdid Belhadi said the station will air from breakfast time to midnight.
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Tunisia’s Human Rights Minister earlier this year announced that the country will no longer perform anal exams on bisexual and gay men without their consent.
more...
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These people are heroes! Best wishes and may they be safe!
December 22, 2017
Juan Thompson, the ex-journalist whose threats to Jewish centers set off fears of right-wing anti-Semitism in the wake of last year’s presidential election, was sentenced to five years in prison in Manhattan federal court Wednesday after an ex-girlfriend he cyberstalked said she still feared him.
“Men like Juan Thompson usually end up murdering their victims,” Francesca Rossi, a Brooklyn social worker, said in a riveting statement to U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel. “I feared for my life every day. I’m still not convinced that he still won’t try to kill me.
Thompson, 32, of St. Louis, pleaded guilty in June to cyberstalking Rossi for 9 months and making at least 12 hoax threats to Jewish community centers, some in her name, as part of a bizarre internet campaign to smear her as an anti-Semite, drunk, child pornographer and loose woman.
Until his arrest, the anonymous threats to centers from New York to San Diego — including one warning of a “Jewish Newtown,” a reference to the notorious school shooting — were among a series of incidents that led to a panic about anti-Semitism linked to Donald Trump’s election.
But Rossi, her voice breaking occasionally during a 15-minute statement, gave the first detailed narrative of the events leading up to the threats, urging Castel to impose a sentence that recognized a different link — between misogynistic violence against women and domestic terrorism.
more...
(Jewish Group) Man behind threats against NYC Jewish centers gets 5 years
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Juan Thompson, the ex-journalist whose threats to Jewish centers set off fears of right-wing anti-Semitism in the wake of last year’s presidential election, was sentenced to five years in prison in Manhattan federal court Wednesday after an ex-girlfriend he cyberstalked said she still feared him.
“Men like Juan Thompson usually end up murdering their victims,” Francesca Rossi, a Brooklyn social worker, said in a riveting statement to U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel. “I feared for my life every day. I’m still not convinced that he still won’t try to kill me.
Thompson, 32, of St. Louis, pleaded guilty in June to cyberstalking Rossi for 9 months and making at least 12 hoax threats to Jewish community centers, some in her name, as part of a bizarre internet campaign to smear her as an anti-Semite, drunk, child pornographer and loose woman.
Until his arrest, the anonymous threats to centers from New York to San Diego — including one warning of a “Jewish Newtown,” a reference to the notorious school shooting — were among a series of incidents that led to a panic about anti-Semitism linked to Donald Trump’s election.
But Rossi, her voice breaking occasionally during a 15-minute statement, gave the first detailed narrative of the events leading up to the threats, urging Castel to impose a sentence that recognized a different link — between misogynistic violence against women and domestic terrorism.
more...
December 22, 2017
"I was just waiting for her to say she was Jewish.”
This was my colleague’s reaction to the white, female narrator of a very problematic video we were watching together. Despite the fact that we worked at a non-profit that had integrated an anti-oppressive analysis in their values and internal systems, my colleague, who was on the management team, associated all the negativity in the video with Judaism, instead of understanding the white supremacy that was playing out in the narrator’s brand of feminism.
A week later I got the courage to approach my colleague about the comments she had made about the video. I explained that what she said was hurtful. Though my colleague apologized, she continued to tell me that she had based her judgement on personal experiences she’s had. In essence, she was generalizing about all Jews based on the few Jews that she had met. I was speechless and dropped the subject with her. This is just one of many experiences I’ve had with anti-Semitism while doing social justice work in New York City over the past decade, and it’s part of what drove me to contribute to a new guide that I hope will help to address situations exactly like this one.
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) recently released Understanding Antisemitism, a resource which explains who Jews are, how anti-Semitism works, and how it interacts with other forms of oppression, such as racism and capitalism. It provides a nuanced explanation of why it is important for the left to have a strong analysis of anti-Semitism so we can all get free. While the true locus of anti-Semitism is the political right, especially the Christian, white nationalist right, we need to be able to address the ignorance and confusion of the left as well. Having Understanding Antisemitism out in the world feels like maybe, just maybe, what I have been trying to explain to my non-Jewish colleagues, friends and comrades in left organizations for many years will finally be seen and I will no longer be dismissed, demonized and reprimanded for speaking up.
more...
(Jewish Group) As An Arab Jew, I Am Exposed To Anti-Semitism From The Right And The Left
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)"I was just waiting for her to say she was Jewish.”
This was my colleague’s reaction to the white, female narrator of a very problematic video we were watching together. Despite the fact that we worked at a non-profit that had integrated an anti-oppressive analysis in their values and internal systems, my colleague, who was on the management team, associated all the negativity in the video with Judaism, instead of understanding the white supremacy that was playing out in the narrator’s brand of feminism.
A week later I got the courage to approach my colleague about the comments she had made about the video. I explained that what she said was hurtful. Though my colleague apologized, she continued to tell me that she had based her judgement on personal experiences she’s had. In essence, she was generalizing about all Jews based on the few Jews that she had met. I was speechless and dropped the subject with her. This is just one of many experiences I’ve had with anti-Semitism while doing social justice work in New York City over the past decade, and it’s part of what drove me to contribute to a new guide that I hope will help to address situations exactly like this one.
Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) recently released Understanding Antisemitism, a resource which explains who Jews are, how anti-Semitism works, and how it interacts with other forms of oppression, such as racism and capitalism. It provides a nuanced explanation of why it is important for the left to have a strong analysis of anti-Semitism so we can all get free. While the true locus of anti-Semitism is the political right, especially the Christian, white nationalist right, we need to be able to address the ignorance and confusion of the left as well. Having Understanding Antisemitism out in the world feels like maybe, just maybe, what I have been trying to explain to my non-Jewish colleagues, friends and comrades in left organizations for many years will finally be seen and I will no longer be dismissed, demonized and reprimanded for speaking up.
more...
December 22, 2017
Since Donald Trump made his Jerusalem announcement this month, a series of antisemitic attacks and other incidents have taken place in Europe. They have drawn condemnation from political leaders and received some, but not much, media attention. These events are a sign that antisemitism in Europe could be getting worse.
The Holocaust is a defining legacy of European history. Europeans have a special responsibility to ensure Jews feel safe and free in our societies. There can be no justification for antisemitism. That may be stating the obvious, but these days it seems that the obvious needs to be stated.
On 9 December in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city, a group of masked men attempted to set fire to a synagogue. They threw molotov cocktails, forcing young people who had been holding a Hanukkah party to seek refuge in the basement. Days later, a second arson attack occurred at a Jewish cemetery in Malmö, where there were also reports of calls for an “intifada” and violent, antisemitic shouts at a demonstration. In Amsterdam, a man holding a Palestinian flag smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant. The incident, recorded on video, was described by the Organisation of Jewish Communities in the Netherlands as “no less than an act of terror”.
In Gothenburg, three men were detained for “attempted criminal arson” after the synagogue attack. According to the antiracist activist magazine Expo, they were two Syrians and one Palestinian. All three had arrived in Sweden this year. The Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven declared there was “no place for antisemitism in our society”, while Angela Merkel commented that “no difference of opinion, including on the status of Jerusalem, can justify such acts”.
more...
(Jewish Group) To fight European antisemitism, we must first face up to it
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Since Donald Trump made his Jerusalem announcement this month, a series of antisemitic attacks and other incidents have taken place in Europe. They have drawn condemnation from political leaders and received some, but not much, media attention. These events are a sign that antisemitism in Europe could be getting worse.
The Holocaust is a defining legacy of European history. Europeans have a special responsibility to ensure Jews feel safe and free in our societies. There can be no justification for antisemitism. That may be stating the obvious, but these days it seems that the obvious needs to be stated.
On 9 December in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second largest city, a group of masked men attempted to set fire to a synagogue. They threw molotov cocktails, forcing young people who had been holding a Hanukkah party to seek refuge in the basement. Days later, a second arson attack occurred at a Jewish cemetery in Malmö, where there were also reports of calls for an “intifada” and violent, antisemitic shouts at a demonstration. In Amsterdam, a man holding a Palestinian flag smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant. The incident, recorded on video, was described by the Organisation of Jewish Communities in the Netherlands as “no less than an act of terror”.
In Gothenburg, three men were detained for “attempted criminal arson” after the synagogue attack. According to the antiracist activist magazine Expo, they were two Syrians and one Palestinian. All three had arrived in Sweden this year. The Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven declared there was “no place for antisemitism in our society”, while Angela Merkel commented that “no difference of opinion, including on the status of Jerusalem, can justify such acts”.
more...
December 20, 2017
Surely, just people displeased with some policy or something.
Toronto synagogues among several across Canada to receive anti-Semitic hate mail
Source: 680 News Canada
Four Toronto synagogues are among 10 across the country that have received disturbing anti-Semitic hate mail.
According to B’nai Brith Canada, Adath Israel Congregation and three other synagogues were sent a letter with the phrase “Jewry Must Perish” written around an image of a swastika inside a bleeding Star of David.
“I think they are being trouble makers, maybe they hope that they will upset people in the Jewish community,” said Rabbi David See, Adath Israel Congregation. “I think what it does is turns the table in a positive way. People reach out and say …’this is terrible. This is not what we as a country stand for.'”
Toronto police wouldn’t confirm all four Toronto incidents but said they have received two separate reports of hate mail to date — one to Beth Tzedec Synogogue and one to a private business in the Dufferin Street and Finch Avenue area.
Read more: http://www.680news.com/2017/12/19/synagogue-hate-mail/
Surely, just people displeased with some policy or something.
December 18, 2017
Simon Schama’s “Belonging: 1492-1900,” the second volume of his panoramic study of Jewish life, “The Story of the Jews,” is in fact an account of serial exile. Jews never belong enough anywhere to avoid vilification as parasites, vultures, usurers and traitors. “They have clung to us like leeches,” wrote the French polemicist Georges-Marie Mathieu-Dairnvaell in the 1840s, and were no more than “vampires, scavengers of nature.”
This is the standard lexicon of Jew hatred during the period Schama covers in “Belonging.” Loathing flares — from Mantua to Prague, from London to Lisbon, from the Vatican to Berlin — with scant variation. Degradation amounts to the Jews’ “perpetual punishment for the sin of the Crucifixion,” Schama writes. They are the Christ killers, fit principally for the ghetto, unfit for citizenship.
The book begins around the time of the Spanish Inquisition and ends with the Dreyfus case, a 400-year round trip back to the same Jewish question. Theodor Herzl finally answers that question with his Zionist vision of a “home that is destined to be a safe haven for the Jewish people.” The homeland, for Herzl, whose pamphlet “The Jewish State” was published in 1896, was needed because it had proved “useless” for Jews to be “loyal patriots.” Only in their own state would they not be potential pariahs.
Continue reading the main story
It is difficult to read the 800 pages of “Belonging” and not reach the same conclusion. No Jewish patriot, rich or poor, was secure. The fate of Alfred Dreyfus, a loyal French officer falsely convicted of treason, was always possible. To think otherwise was indeed useless, an exercise in delusion. Expulsion, imprisonment or worse lurked — a constant threat.
more...
The first one was really good. There is also a 5 part mini-series based on these books.
(Jewish Group) Millenniums of Tribulation
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!)Simon Schama’s “Belonging: 1492-1900,” the second volume of his panoramic study of Jewish life, “The Story of the Jews,” is in fact an account of serial exile. Jews never belong enough anywhere to avoid vilification as parasites, vultures, usurers and traitors. “They have clung to us like leeches,” wrote the French polemicist Georges-Marie Mathieu-Dairnvaell in the 1840s, and were no more than “vampires, scavengers of nature.”
This is the standard lexicon of Jew hatred during the period Schama covers in “Belonging.” Loathing flares — from Mantua to Prague, from London to Lisbon, from the Vatican to Berlin — with scant variation. Degradation amounts to the Jews’ “perpetual punishment for the sin of the Crucifixion,” Schama writes. They are the Christ killers, fit principally for the ghetto, unfit for citizenship.
The book begins around the time of the Spanish Inquisition and ends with the Dreyfus case, a 400-year round trip back to the same Jewish question. Theodor Herzl finally answers that question with his Zionist vision of a “home that is destined to be a safe haven for the Jewish people.” The homeland, for Herzl, whose pamphlet “The Jewish State” was published in 1896, was needed because it had proved “useless” for Jews to be “loyal patriots.” Only in their own state would they not be potential pariahs.
Continue reading the main story
It is difficult to read the 800 pages of “Belonging” and not reach the same conclusion. No Jewish patriot, rich or poor, was secure. The fate of Alfred Dreyfus, a loyal French officer falsely convicted of treason, was always possible. To think otherwise was indeed useless, an exercise in delusion. Expulsion, imprisonment or worse lurked — a constant threat.
more...
The first one was really good. There is also a 5 part mini-series based on these books.
December 15, 2017
The family of Iraq’s contestant in the Miss Universe Pageant have left the country due to threats to their lives over her modeling in a bikini and posting on social media photos taken with Miss Israel.
Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, lives in the United States and the rest of her family has now fled the country, Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, told Hadashot news. Gandelsman said she has been in touch with Idan since the pageant and that the two women have a special relationship.
During the competition in Tokyo in November, Miss Israel, Gandelsman and Idan posed for photos on their respective Instagram accounts. Idan’s caption read: “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”
more...
(Jewish Group) Miss Iraqs Family Forced To Flee Over Photo With Miss Israel
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)The family of Iraq’s contestant in the Miss Universe Pageant have left the country due to threats to their lives over her modeling in a bikini and posting on social media photos taken with Miss Israel.
Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, lives in the United States and the rest of her family has now fled the country, Miss Israel, Adar Gandelsman, told Hadashot news. Gandelsman said she has been in touch with Idan since the pageant and that the two women have a special relationship.
During the competition in Tokyo in November, Miss Israel, Gandelsman and Idan posed for photos on their respective Instagram accounts. Idan’s caption read: “Peace and Love from Miss Iraq and Miss Israel.”
more...
December 15, 2017
STOCKHOLM — This past Saturday, a Hanukkah party at a synagogue in Goteborg, Sweden, was abruptly interrupted by Molotov cocktails. They were hurled by a gang of men in masks at the Jews, mostly teenagers, who had gathered to celebrate the holiday.
Two days later, two fire bombs were discovered outside the Jewish burial chapel in the southern Swedish city of Malmo.
Who knows what tomorrow may bring?
For Sweden’s 18,000 Jews, sadly, none of this comes as a surprise. They are by now used to anti-Semitic threats and attacks — especially during periods of unrest in the Middle East, which provide cover to those whose actual goal has little to do with Israel and much to do with harming Jews.
Both of these recent attacks followed days of incitement against Jews. Last Friday, 200 people protested in Malmo against President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The protesters called for an intifada and promised “we will shoot the Jews.” A day later, during a demonstration in Stockholm, a speaker called Jews “apes and pigs.” There were promises of martyrdom.
Malmo’s sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. In response to such attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel warning in 2010 advising “extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden” because of officials’ failure to act against the “serial harassment” of Jews in Malmo.
Today, entering a synagogue anywhere in Sweden usually requires going through security checks, including airport-like questioning. At times of high alert, police officers with machine guns guard Jewish schools. Children at the Jewish kindergarten in Malmo play behind bulletproof glass. Not even funerals are safe from harassment.
more...
(Jewish Group) The Uncomfortable Truth About Swedish Anti-Semitism
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)STOCKHOLM — This past Saturday, a Hanukkah party at a synagogue in Goteborg, Sweden, was abruptly interrupted by Molotov cocktails. They were hurled by a gang of men in masks at the Jews, mostly teenagers, who had gathered to celebrate the holiday.
Two days later, two fire bombs were discovered outside the Jewish burial chapel in the southern Swedish city of Malmo.
Who knows what tomorrow may bring?
For Sweden’s 18,000 Jews, sadly, none of this comes as a surprise. They are by now used to anti-Semitic threats and attacks — especially during periods of unrest in the Middle East, which provide cover to those whose actual goal has little to do with Israel and much to do with harming Jews.
Both of these recent attacks followed days of incitement against Jews. Last Friday, 200 people protested in Malmo against President Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The protesters called for an intifada and promised “we will shoot the Jews.” A day later, during a demonstration in Stockholm, a speaker called Jews “apes and pigs.” There were promises of martyrdom.
Malmo’s sole Hasidic rabbi has reported being the victim of more than 100 incidents of hostility ranging from hate speech to physical assault. In response to such attacks, the Simon Wiesenthal Center issued a travel warning in 2010 advising “extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden” because of officials’ failure to act against the “serial harassment” of Jews in Malmo.
Today, entering a synagogue anywhere in Sweden usually requires going through security checks, including airport-like questioning. At times of high alert, police officers with machine guns guard Jewish schools. Children at the Jewish kindergarten in Malmo play behind bulletproof glass. Not even funerals are safe from harassment.
more...
December 15, 2017
President Trump recently declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Ever since, protests have rallied against this declaration, in Israel/Palestine, and all over the world. Protesters in Germany and Europe are threatening synagogues and burning Israeli flags and marching against the Jews.
In the United States and during the events in Charlottesville – Virginia, I watched in disbelief the Neo-Nazis marched chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” President Trump said there were “good people” among those protesters. Seriously?
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Antisemitism has prevailed since the dawn of Judaism. Regardless of the political and socio-economic reasons for such hatred against the Jews, where and when did it all start? Perhaps the question to ask is, why?
History lesson
Antisemitism dates back to the first Crusade in 1096 and the Rhineland massacres. Later in 1290, the expulsion from England took place, followed by the massacres of Spanish Jews and the famous Spanish Inquisition in 1492. Anti-Jewish programs in Russia, Ukraine, France followed culminating with the Holocaust in the German-occupied Europe in 1933. After the British Mandate and the declaration of Israel as a country in 1948, Arabs and Muslims pushed for Jewish Exodus from their countries.
Why has hatred against the Jews persisted till today?
more...
(Jewish Group) Anti-Semitism: New and Ancient, Hatred-Laden
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)President Trump recently declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. Ever since, protests have rallied against this declaration, in Israel/Palestine, and all over the world. Protesters in Germany and Europe are threatening synagogues and burning Israeli flags and marching against the Jews.
In the United States and during the events in Charlottesville – Virginia, I watched in disbelief the Neo-Nazis marched chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” President Trump said there were “good people” among those protesters. Seriously?
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Antisemitism has prevailed since the dawn of Judaism. Regardless of the political and socio-economic reasons for such hatred against the Jews, where and when did it all start? Perhaps the question to ask is, why?
History lesson
Antisemitism dates back to the first Crusade in 1096 and the Rhineland massacres. Later in 1290, the expulsion from England took place, followed by the massacres of Spanish Jews and the famous Spanish Inquisition in 1492. Anti-Jewish programs in Russia, Ukraine, France followed culminating with the Holocaust in the German-occupied Europe in 1933. After the British Mandate and the declaration of Israel as a country in 1948, Arabs and Muslims pushed for Jewish Exodus from their countries.
Why has hatred against the Jews persisted till today?
more...
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Gender: Do not displayMember since: Sat Aug 7, 2004, 03:58 AM
Number of posts: 53,939
