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New Year 5776: A Few Thoughts: Baruch Cohen, CIJR, Sept. 11, 2015 — The name Rosh HaShanah as it is used in the Bible (Ezekiel 40:1) simply means the beginning of the year, and does not designate the festival.
A Prayer for 5776: Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 10, 2015 — As we approach Rosh Hashana, the people of Israel need to recognize how lucky we are.
Colleges Brainwash Students Into Believing 9/11 Was Our Fault: Paul Sperry, New York Post, Sept. 6, 2015 — Not all of us will be mourning 9/11 victims and their families this Friday on the 14th anniversary of the attacks. Hundreds of college kids across the country will instead be taught to sympathize with the terrorists.
On Hallowed Ground: Dave Barry, Miami Herald, Sept. 8, 2015 — On a humid July day in Pennsylvania, hundreds of tourists, as millions have before them, are drifting among the simple gravestones and timeworn monuments of the national cemetery at Gettysburg.
Cultivating the Inner Self – A Message From Rabbi Sacks for Rosh Hashanah 5776: Jonathan Sacks, Times of Israel, Sept. 9, 2015
On Rosh Hashanah, Israel's Population Reaches 8.4 Million: Zeev Klein, Israel Hayom, Sept. 9, 2015
The Islamist Menace Shadowing This Sept. 11: Rudolph W. Giuliani, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10, 2015
The Democrats’ Depraved Indifference: Martin Sherman, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 10, 2015
Baruch Cohen
CIJR, Sept. 11, 2015
In Loving Memory of Malka Z”L
The name Rosh HaShanah as it is used in the Bible (Ezekiel 40:1) simply means the beginning of the year, and does not designate the festival. The Babylonian name Tishri seems to derive from the root Seru, which means “to begin.” The ancient Semitic people thought of the year as the beginning of autumn, the time of the late harvest.
The Hebrew expression “be-zet ha-shanah” (at the end of the year) and “tekufat ha-shanah” (at the end-turning of the year), by which the Feast of Ingathering, or Sukkoth, (which is, in a popular sense, the equivalent of the priestly Day of Remembrance), is dated to Exodus 23:16 and 34:22 respectively.
Rosh HaShanah stresses a universalist motif. The prayers are not for Israel alone, but for the entire world ─ for redemption, for righteousness and truth, for Haolam Koolo, the whole world. This is the great plea for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, the Kingdom of righteousness and truth in the spirit of brotherhood, and the annihilation of lies, inequality and tyranny.
Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlov (1772-1810) used to say: to me the main holiday is Rosh HaShana. “For in no time at all the whole year passes…in the twinkling of an eye” (Si Hot he-Ran, No. 214).
Rosh HaShana New Year prayers are not for Israel and the Jewish People alone, but for the redemption of the entire world. The wonderful Hebrew cry from the heart for Hesh Bon Hanefesh, a “taking of stock” of our soul, is for an inner accounting, a judgement upon oneself, and is also a call for redemption of the entire world, Haolam Koolo, Shanah Tova u’mtuka, a sweet New Year 5776 to all!
(Baruch Cohen is CIJR’s Research Chairman)
Caroline B. Glick
Jerusalem Post, Sept. 10, 2015
As we approach Rosh Hashana, the people of Israel need to recognize how lucky we are. True, today, we find ourselves largely alone, set apart from our traditional partners in the Western world. But standing alone isn’t always the worst option. Today it is certainly not the worst option.
Over the past several years, we have witnessed the growing radicalization and fragmentation of the societies of neighboring lands. Sunnis fight Shi’ites and one another. Minority populations are slaughtered, enslaved and oppressed. Regimes fall, rise and fall again. Today, every Arab society is either in danger or at war. And in almost every case, it isn’t good fighting evil but varying degrees of evil and barbarism fighting one another.
From the PLO to Islamic State, through Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Assad regime in Syria, the ayatollahs of Iran, Hezbollah, the Erdogan regime in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and every single actor in the region resorts to some degree of torture and oppression. And all do so while quoting the Koran.
Israel has responded rationally to the carnage at our doorstep. We help where we can. For instance, we are assisting the Egyptian regime in its war against jihadist forces in Sinai. We support the Hashemite regime in Jordan. We provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of the bloodbath in Syria. And we are securing our borders. After we finished building the border fence with Egypt, we built one along the Syrian border. Now we are fencing off the border with Jordan. These fences may not make good neighbors. But they do keep the bad ones at bay.
Similar rationality is in short supply today in Europe and among the smart set in America. Westerners are increasingly at a loss in the face of the break-up of societies throughout the Arab world. Consider for instance Europe’s disoriented, confused response to the massive wave of refugees from Syria now washing onto its shores. Perhaps the most notable aspect of the unfolding drama is that it appears the Europeans only just realized that Syria has fallen apart.
The war in Syria broke out nearly five years ago. Hundreds of thousands have already been killed in the conflict. Ten million people – nearly half of Syria’s pre-war population – have been displaced. For the past four years, millions of Syrians have been living in refugee camps in neighboring states – first and foremost in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Most of the refugees now arriving in Europe are coming from these camps, rather than directly from Syria. Rather than help them either resettle in the lands to which they fled, or take action on the ground in Syria to enable them to return to their homes, the Europeans largely ignored them.
Part of the reason Europe has ignored Syria, of course, is indifference. So long as it’s happening “over there,” the Europeans really couldn’t care less.
But indifference alone does not explain how Europe has been taken by surprise by a humanitarian disaster of the magnitude now unfolding at its borders. Identity politics have played a key role in shaping Europe’s failed Middle East politics – in Syria and throughout the increasingly destabilized Islamic world. Identity politics distinguish between various groups based on how they fall on a spectrum of “oppression.” Western nations, led by Europe and the US, are all classified as “oppressors,” due to their “imperialist” past. The Islamic world writ large is classified as “oppressed.” All groups that receive “oppressed” status are immune from judgment, much less resistance from those who fall on the side of the “oppressors.”
Given this taxonomy, Europeans along with the sectors of American society that have embraced identity policies are incapable of recognizing, much less taking action against, radical Islamists. Those who are oppressed by the “oppressed” of the Islamic world – the Yazidis, Christians and Kurds, for instance – can receive no sustained protection from their jihadist oppressors by the “Muslim-oppressing” West. The immunity identity politics confers on “oppressed” population groups adheres even when those groups themselves engage in oppression.
There is, however, one group in the Islamic world that identity politics do not immunize from Western opposition. The West can oppose Arab regimes that wish to cooperate with the West in fighting against radical Islamists. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for instance is a member of this group. Ever since he overthrew the US-supported Muslim Brotherhood regime two years ago, the US has kept him at arm’s length. Washington has imposed a partial weapons embargo and denied US support for its war against jihadist forces in Sinai.
Then there is Libya. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi collaborated with the West against al-Qaida from 2004 until he was assassinated in 2011. That year Gaddafi was overthrown by European forces backed by the US. The West overthrew Gaddafi in order “to prevent genocide.” The chaos that ensued in Libya after his overthrow has in turn enabled al-Qaida and Islamic State to take over large swathes of the country. The West has had nothing to say about this turn of events.
The tyranny of identity politics is not limited to its conferral of immunity on jihadists. Identity politics are a comprehensive, totalitarian world view that dictates responses in all areas of human endeavor. For instance, the “Black Lives Matter” group in the US, which sanctions the murder of policemen, is given a pass by adherents of identity politics. Its followers view all blacks as oppressed. Police, who are perceived as agents of Western oppression, cannot expect sympathy when they are murdered.
In Britain, adherents of identity politics not only want to see Britain out of the Middle East, they support their country’s unilateral nuclear disarmament, because as they see it, Britain is unworthy of nuclear weapons due to its imperialist past. A testament to the power of identity politics in Britain is the rise of Jeremy Corbyn. The radical Labor parliamentarian is expected to win the race for leadership of the party on Saturday. Corbyn is a shining example of the type of leader produced by identity politics. He opposes British power. He is a foe of free markets and the British military. He supports Hamas and Hezbollah. He has led anti-Israel demonstrations and conferences organized by Islamist organizations. He has contributed to an organization led by a Holocaust denier and participated in its conferences. And of course, he opposes Israel and Jews who support it.
That’s the thing of it. Identity politics define both Israel and Jews in the Diaspora as “oppressors.” Many Israelis as well as Jewish organizations in the Diaspora have been trying for years to prove that this is untrue. Israel is after all the victim of both European and Islamic imperialists. Zionism is a national liberation movement.
But these protestations have made no impression on anyone. And this is to be expected. It isn’t possible to change Israel’s classification on the oppression scale, because the scale is completely arbitrary. Even worse, every attempt to question the arbitrary scale simply induces more hostility on the part of its adherents. Questioning whether oppressed groups are in fact oppressed is itself an act of oppression and further proof that those who question are indeed oppressors. In other words, identity politics are a closed intellectual universe immune from all doubts, and logic…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
COLLEGES BRAINWASH STUDENTS INTO BELIEVING 9/11 WAS OUR FAULT
Paul Sperry
New York Post, Sept. 6, 2015
Not all of us will be mourning 9/11 victims and their families this Friday on the 14th anniversary of the attacks. Hundreds of college kids across the country will instead be taught to sympathize with the terrorists.
That’s because their America-hating leftist professors are systematically indoctrinating them into believing it’s all our fault, that the US deserved punishment for “imperialism” — and the kids are too young to remember or understand what really happened that horrific day.
Case in point is a freshman-level English class taught at several major universities across the country called “The Literature of 9/11” — which focuses almost entirely on writings from the perspective of the Islamic terrorists, rather than the nearly 3,000 Americans who were slaughtered by them. The syllabus, which includes books like “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” and “Poems from Guantanamo: Detainees Speak,” portray terrorists as “freedom fighters” driven by oppressive US foreign policies.
Even highly ranked University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has adopted the curriculum. The 9/11 seminar is taught by UNC associate English professor Neel Ahuja, who specializes in “post-colonial studies.” In Ahuja’s twisted worldview, al Qaeda terrorists are the real victims. “Abu Zubaydah’s torture may be interpreted as simply one more example of the necropower of US imperialism, the power to coerce and kill targeted populations,” Ahuja recently wrote in an academic paper criticizing the war on terror.
He says America’s depiction of the 9/11 terrorists as “monsters” is merely an attempt to “animalize” them as insects and justify “squashing” them in “a fantasy of justice.”
This colonialist “construct” of an “animalized enemy,” he added, “dovetails with the work of mourning the nation after 9/11 (which in the logic of security must be made perpetual, melancholic).” To him, it’s all cynically designed to justify more “imperial violence” against “Muslim, Arab and South Asian men.” Ahuja goes on to decry the US “colonization” of Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, along with “aerial bombing (and) indefinite detention” of al Qaeda terrorists at Gitmo. In other writings, the professor bashes Israel and sides with Palestinian terrorists, further revealing his agenda. He clearly has an ax to grind, which critics say the university gives him license to exercise through “The Literature of 9/11” curriculum.
A group of concerned UNC students has complained to administrators that the 9/11 course, also taught at the University of Maryland and other campuses, is being used to brainwash impressionable underclassmen. “These readings offer points of view that justify terrorism, paint the United States and its government as wholly evil and immoral and desecrate the memory of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,” the UNC College Republicans said in a recent letter to Chancellor Carol Folt.
“There is not a single reading required that focuses on the lives of the victims, the victim’s [sic] families, American soldiers (or) families of American soldiers,” they added. “Nor is there a perspective that portrays the United States as acting in good faith before, during and after the Sept. 11 attacks.” The course, moreover, “does not teach students how to think, it teaches them what to think,” the letter continued. “And the material it presents is an apologetic for the violence and murder against the United States.”
The university replied that freshmen should be exposed to differing points of view, even radical ones. “Part of the college experience is the opportunity to learn from those who have differing points of view. Carolina’s first-year seminar program is part of that growth,” the administration said in a press statement, while insisting “the university isn’t forcing a set of beliefs on students.”
But several students who have taken the course warned in a professor review blog that Ahuja, who earns $72,100 a year spewing his unAmerican propaganda, does not tolerate dissent. “He favors kids who share his views, so learn to do that,” said one reviewer. “A very interesting guy, just don’t disagree with him.” Added another student, in a January 2014 post: “I would avoid contradicting him openly.” “AGREE WITH HIS STANCE IN YOUR PAPERS!!!!!” advised another in November.
What’s happening in Chapel Hill is not isolated. Presenting terrorists in a sympathetic light and the US as an imperialist nation is standard fare. This is what, in varying degrees, most college kids are learning today, all over the country.
Dave Barry
Miami Herald, Sept. 8, 2002
On a humid July day in Pennsylvania, hundreds of tourists, as millions have before them, are drifting among the simple gravestones and timeworn monuments of the national cemetery at Gettysburg. Several thousand soldiers are buried here. A few graves are decorated with flowers, suggesting some of the dead have relatives who still come here. There's a sign at the entrance, reminding people that this is a cemetery. It says: "SILENCE AND RESPECT."
Most of the tourists are being reasonably respectful, for tourists, although many, apparently without noticing, walk on the graves, stand on the bones of the soldiers. Hardly anybody is silent. Perky tour guides are telling well-practiced stories and jokes; parents are yelling at children; children are yelling at each other. A tour group of maybe two dozen teen-agers are paying zero attention to anything but each other, flirting, laughing, wrapped in the happy self-absorbed obliviousness of Teen-agerLand.
A few yards away, gazing somberly toward the teen-agers, is a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address here 139 years ago, when the gentle rolling landscape, now green and manicured, was still raw and battle-scarred, the earth recently soaked with the blood of the 8,000 who died, and the tens of thousands more who were wounded, when two armies, 160,000 men, fought a terrible battle on July 1, 2 and 3 that determined the outcome of the Civil War.
Nobody planned for the battle to happen here. Neither army set out for Gettysburg. But this is where it happened. This is where, out of randomness, out of chance, a thousand variables conspired to bring the two mighty armies together. And so this quiet little town, because it happened to be here, became historic, significant, a symbol, its identity indelibly defined by this one overwhelming event. This is where these soldiers – soldiers from Minnesota, soldiers from Kentucky, soldiers who had never heard of Gettysburg before they came here to die – will lie forever. This is hallowed ground.
On the same July day, a few hours' drive to the west, near the small Pennsylvania town of Shanksville, Wally Miller, coroner of Somerset County, Pa., walks slowly through the tall grass covering a quiet field, to a place near the edge, just before some woods. This is the place where, on Sept. 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93, scene of a desperate airborne battle pitting passengers and crew against terrorist hijackers, came hurtling out of the sky, turning upside down and slamming into the earth at more than 500 mph. That horrendous event transformed this quiet field into a smoking, reeking hell, a nightmare landscape of jet fuel, burning plane debris, scattered human remains.
Now, 10 months later, the field is green again. Peaceful and green. Except where Flight 93 plunged into the ground. That one place is still barren dirt. That one place has not healed. "Interesting that the grass won't grow right here," says Miller. Nobody on Flight 93 was heading for Somerset County that day. The 33 passengers and seven crew were heading from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco. The four hijackers had a different destination in mind, probably Washington, D.C., possibly the White House.
Nobody on the plane meant to come here. "I doubt that any one of them would ever set foot in Somerset County, except maybe to stop at Howard Johnson's on the turnpike," Miller says. "They have no roots here." But this is where they are. And this is where they will stay. No bodies were recovered here, at least not as we normally think of bodies. In the cataclysmic violence of the crash, the people on Flight 93 literally disintegrated. Searchers found fragments of bones, small pieces of flesh, a hand. But no bodies.
In the grisly accounting of a jetliner crash, it comes down to pounds: The people on Flight 93 weighed a total of about 7,500 pounds. Miller supervised an intensive effort to gather their remains, some flung hundreds of yards. In the end, just 600 pounds of remains were collected; of these, 250 pounds could be identified by DNA testing and returned to the families of the passengers and crew. Forty families, wanting to bury their loved ones. Two hundred fifty pounds of identifiable remains. "There were people who were getting a skull cap and a tooth in the casket," Miller says. "That was their loved ones."
The rest of the remains, the vast majority, will stay here forever, in this ground. "For all intents and purposes, they're buried here," Miller says. "This is a cemetery." This is also hallowed ground. In the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln was essentially trying to answer a question. The question was: How do you honor your heroes? Lincoln's answer was: You can't. No speech you give, no monument you erect, will be worthy of them, of their sacrifice. The best you can do is remember the cause they died for, finish the job they started. Of course the passengers and crew on Flight 93, when they set out from Newark that morning, had no cause in common. They were people on a plane bound from Newark to San Francisco. Some were going home, some traveling on business, some on vacation. People on a plane. Which makes it all the more astonishing, what they did.
You've been on planes. Think how it feels, especially on a morning cross-country flight. You got up early; you're tired; you've been buckled in your seat for a couple of hours, with hours more to go. You're reading, or maybe dozing. You're essentially cargo: There's nowhere you can go, nothing you can do, no role you could possibly play in flying this huge, complex machine. You retreat into your passenger cocoon, passive, trusting your fate to the hands of others, confident that they'll get you down safe, because they always do.
Now imagine what that awful morning was like for the people on Flight 93. Imagine being ripped from your safe little cocoon, discovering that the plane was now controlled by killers, that your life was in their bloody hands. Imagine knowing that there was nobody to help you, except you, and the people, mostly strangers, around you…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends and Supporters:
Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova! Happy New Year 5776!
Cultivating the Inner Self – A Message From Rabbi Sacks for Rosh Hashanah 5776: Jonathan Sacks, Times of Israel, Sept. 9, 2015—“Original” is not a word often used in connection with a code of Jewish law. In general, the rule tends to be that if it’s true it isn’t new, and if it’s new it isn’t true.
On Rosh Hashanah, Israel's Population Reaches 8.4 Million: Zeev Klein, Israel Hayom, Sept. 9, 2015 —With the Jewish year of 5776 just around the corner, the Central Bureau of Statistics has released its annual population statistics, which show that Israel's population has reached a record of about 8,412,000 people.
The Islamist Menace Shadowing This Sept. 11: Rudolph W. Giuliani, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 10, 2015—The anniversaries and other reminders of the Islamic extremist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, stir a torrent of thoughts and emotions. But we should try to focus on those most relevant today.
The Democrats’ Depraved Indifference: Martin Sherman, Jerusalem Post, Sept. 10, 2015 —The US legal system stipulates two related offenses, “reckless endangerment” and “depraved indifference.”
