Why did BLM hop on the BDS wagon? Follow the money and Flowers and candles - an excerpt from Shalom Pollock's book and Every best actor Oscar winner (1929-2017) and Bet Hagdudum Museum 060621 and When You're In Love the Whole World is Jewish - comedy musical album from 1966 (sequel) and Tzom Tammuz the 17th of Tammuz -is Sunday (Fast commemorating breaching of the walls of Jerusalem before the destruction of the Temple) and The Portion of Balak
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Dozens of people managed to successfully enter Israel by impersonating yeshiva students earlier this week.In order to attend a wedding in Kfar Saba on Tuesday night, more than 30 people from New York succeeded in obtaining student visas, which allow for entry into Israel for the purpose of studying in a yeshiva.
People who hold student visas are able to gain entry into Israel despite almost all other tourism being prohibited under the COVID-19 travel restrictions. The New York residents originally attempted to obtain the visas through Amudim, an ultra-Orthodox organization, which has been helping teenagers obtain student visas in order to attend various gap-year learning programs in Israel even during the coronavirus crisis. The organization was approached by a group of over 30 people, all claiming to require student visas to enter Israel in mid-June.Amudim CEO Zvi Gluck became suspicious, however, and contacted the Israeli consulate, which had also noticed discrepancies in the applications.Gluck discovered that instead of having been in contact with 30 plus yeshiva-age boys hoping to spend their year in Israel, he had been unwittingly providing help to a group of men and women, many over the age of 50, who were attempting to bypass the coronavirus travel restrictions in order to enter Israel for a wedding.
"In addition to tarnishing the reputation of Amudim and the Orthodox Jewish community, your reckless actions have caused immeasurable damage," wrote Gluck on the Yeshiva World website.Despite Gluck's attempts to prevent the visas from being presented to the group, they succeeded in entering the country ahead of the wedding after successfully obtaining the student visas through the Israeli consulate in Belgium.The Israeli authorities will reportedly no longer be processing student visa requests from the three Israeli yeshiva institutions that were involved in the fraud attempt.The Foreign Ministry has responded to the incident, saying it is familiar with it and that "the Foreign Affairs Ministry, together with the Population and Immigration Authority, are investigating the circumstances of the incident."Concerns over entry into Israel have risen in the past few days as a new outbreak of the coronavirus appears to be threatening the country, with over 125 new cases reported on Tuesday alone.According to a report from N12, at least 40% of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the month of June had recently returned to Israel from abroad.Airport restrictions are set to be tightened in the coming days, with a return of mandatory mask-wearing, an improved testing system for passengers on incoming flights, and a 5,000 shekel fine for people violating quarantine orders all reportedly in the works.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
Why did BLM hop on the BDS wagon? Follow the money by Brandy Shufutinsky
Someone at Black Lives Matter decided time was running out on their ability to profit off of Black pain and adopted the UNRWA moneymaking playbookJUN 15, 2021, 8:02 AM
Protesting AIPAC, Chicago, Illinois.(CC/Charles Edward Miller -Photo cropped for fit)
It was a grift designed and executed to profit from Black pain. And what better way to hide theft than to push a decentralized movement that makes it difficult to follow the money.
As evidence of theft and lies continues to surface, what better time for an organization to join one of the best grifts of modern times, the "Free Palestine" movement where, like UNRWA, BLM can launch a global con job.
First, local BLM groups splintered because co-founders decided that they wanted to become involved in politics on a national level instead of focusing on local community-based issues. They created a PAC, using money that was raised to fund local initiatives to wield national political power and influence, in addition to other misappropriations, fraud, waste and abuse.
More recently, assertions have been made that one of the original co-founders has used BLM organizational funds to pay for her personal real estate portfolio. After pitiful attempts to downplay and distract, she resigned from her official position with BLM. Around the same time as this was playing out in the media, the BLM organization released a statement that would launch the organization onto the global stage, standing in solidarity with Palestinians.
Is this a problem? The first question that came to my mind was, what do Palestinians have to do with Black lives and concerns about police violence? Then I remembered the phrase "follow the money." When you follow the money, the trail will usually lead to clear answers to these kinds of questions. It is apparent that leaders of movements have learned from the best of them. If the cause a group originally takes on begins to falter, find a new cause to keep the coffers full.
BLM (the organization, not the movement- which should not be synonymous) took a page out of the UNRWA book. The United Nations General Assembly created UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East in 1949 "to provide relief health, and education services for Palestinians who lost both their homes and means of livelihood during the Arab-Israeli wars following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948."
At that time there were approximately 500,000 Palestinians who were eligible for UNRWA assistance. That number has increased ten-fold. How is it possible that the number of people getting assistance from a relief agency is increasing instead of decreasing? If the agency were doing its job, wouldn't that number be going down?
The indirect answer to this question is, follow the money. UNRWA is a good example of systemic corruption or institutional exploitation. It should be noted that UNRWA was also responsible for providing assistance to Jewish refugees. However, because the State of Israel minimized the crisis of Jewish refugees by making stateless Jews citizens of Israel, this was not necessary. Unfortunately, Arab states neighboring Israel did not follow suit, and their Palestinian population, which UNRWA defines as refugees, has been increasing every year. Originally, UNRWA was intended to be a temporary agency, providing assistance to those in need until they were able to achieve self-sufficiency. However, UNRWA's mandate has been renewed every three years for decades. Why? Again, follow the money.
UNRWA is a moneymaker for the United Nations. The more individuals they can claim on their roster as needing assistance, the more funding they receive. They are literally getting paid to increase dependence. Sound familiar? To some of us who are sincerely concerned about criminal justice reform and community building, this is eerily similar to the prison industry in the United States, where prisons take a financial loss if they do their jobs and reduce recidivism or decrease the prison population. This is why private prison corporations exist, to profit from the incarcerated.
So why does UNRWA continue to exist? Follow the money. If UNRWA provides enough assistance to those they define as Palestinian refugees, or that population decreases, then their funding decreases. However, if they enable refugee status to be inherited, passed down from generation to generation, their numbers go up, and so does UNRWA funding. UNRWA is literally profiting off of pain and conflict. And, here enters BLM and their new global agenda, which has nothing to do with Black lives.
Someone at BLM decided that time was running out on their ability to profit off of Black pain. The more that parents and loved ones of those killed at the hands of police speak out against the BLM organization, the weaker their position as leaders in the movement becomes. So, on to the next. This is where decisions are made that it's time to enter the fray of global politics and follow in the footsteps of organizations like UNRWA and begin to profit off of pain on the international level.
They have learned from autocratic governments and corrupt NGOs, past and present. To distract people from societal woes and failure to achieve liberation, these movements and governments shifted the focus of the masses to the Palestinian cause. This has ramped up antisemitism and also further entrenched the conflict, ultimately also harming Palestinian aspirations for independence. It prevents said organizations and governments from being held accountable for their flaws while allowing them to get away with both antisemitic hate speech and lip service (rather than action) on the issue of Palestinians.
Besides the obvious, dishonoring the memory of those lost and disrespecting their family members, one of the most unfortunate things that will come from this con job is that it provides ammunition to those who seek to erase and ignore the very real problem of violence against Black Americans. Instead of taking a substantive, sincere look at the causes and impacts of racism, bigotry, and violence, they will claim that the race card was played, that there are no instances of systemic racism, and that the "few bad apples" are the cause of police violence against Black Americans.
Now is the time for those of us who truly value liberal democratic ideals to stand up and speak out for the future of our nation. Enough with the nonsense of liars and thieves infiltrating progressive movements for their own gain.
—
The above was written by Brandy, Dmitri, and Noah Shufutinsky.
ABOUT THE AUTHORBrandy Shufutinsky is a social worker, with a MSW from the University of Southern California and a MA in International Relations from the University of San Diego. She hopes to utilize her advocacy in social justice on a global level, working towards developing intercultural opportunities to advance diversity in the workplace and academic settings.She has previously been published in The Forward. Brandy recently completed her doctorate in education at the University of San Francisco in International Multicultural Education.
When You're In Love the Whole World is Jewish - comedy musical album from 1966
*"You Don't Have to be Jewish" is a 1965 comedy album written by Bob Booker and George Foster, the team behind the 1962 comedy album The First Family. The album features Lou Jacobi, Betty Walker, Jack Gilford, Joe Silver, Jackie Kannon, Bob McFadden, Frank Gallop, and Arlene Golonka, in a variety of roles, mostly Jewish, performing a mixture of jokes and comedy sketches. The album was highly successful, with syndicated columnist Walter Winchell calling the album "the No. 1 seller in Suburbia" and noting that as a popular gift "it has replaced the fountain pen at Bar Mitzvahs." A sequel in 1966, "When You're in Love, the Whole World is Jewish", largely reunited the original cast but replaced the unavailable Golonka with her friend Valerie Harper."You Don't Have to be Jewish to love Levy's" was an advertising campaign for Levy's rye bread that began in 1961 and ran through the 1970s
Every best actor Oscar winner (1929-2017)
From Emil Jannings to Casey Affleck, every actor who has won the Academy Award for best actor in a leading role. I hope you enjoy it!
Flowers and candles - an excerpt from Shalom Pollock's book
Keeling on a Paris street, right next to the place where hundreds of people have placed flowers and candles to commemorate the victims of Friday's atrocious terror attacks, a French reporter interviews a little boy, maybe four or five years old. Do you understand why these people did what they did, the reporter wants to know.
Yes, because they're very, very, evil. They're not very nice, these bad guys," the boy replies. "You have to be very careful and you have to switch houses," he adds. "Don't worry," his dad interrupts, gently stroking the boy's head. France is our home, he declares, and we're not going anywhere.
But, the young boy argues, "they have guns and they can shoot at us, because they're very evil." True, but we have flowers, the father retorts, pointing at the sea of people showing their respect to the victims. "Look, everybody is putting down flowers. That's to fight the guns." At first the boy is skeptical — "flowers don't do anything," he says — but his father reassures him that the flowers, together with the candles, protect us from the evildoers. The boy looks relieved. "I feel better now," he says, as his father gives a satisfying smile to the reporter.
The above is part of an article I read today and fits perfectly with the experience that I had yesterday, as I guided a very pleasant group of pastors from Holland.
The theme of the tour was the topographic /strategic and demographic influences on Jerusalem today and tomorrow. Just my cup of tea.
I was able to supply some of the essential facts that are vital in order to discuss political and inter communal issues of the city.
We began on Ammunition Hill, the main battle site in the battles for the survival and unification of Jerusalem in 1967.
I think that some of my guests were surprised to hear that all the neighborhoods that can be seen from the strategic, former Jordanian hill, were Jewish, mostly established after 1967 in what were formerly occupied areas by Jordan since 1948. I explained that 300,000 Jews of Jerusalem live beyond the "green line" in areas that their Dutch ambassador would not visit because it was "occupied territory". They were riveted as they were exposed to this panorama. I was certain that this did not sit well with their conceptions of "occupied East Jerusalem."
I knew that the expected questions would come soon as we began to feel a bit more familiar with each other.
'`So" , I was asked, what about the illegal and immoral occupation of other's lands"? I expected that they needed a basic history lesson of the Arab - Israel conflict. I explained how there never was a "Palestinian state or even a people"; how Jordan was an artificial creation on land that was designated for a Jewish state and how Jordan illegally occupied the "West bank" when she attacked Israel in 1948 and then lost it to Israel when Jordan again attacked in 1967.
"Why then are anyone's claims to the "territories" any better than ours", I asked.
There was no response but one man in particular looked rather uncomfortable.. I asked him, "You seem unhappy with my historical and legal presentation". He agreed that he was not. He said, do you think it is correct to occupy people's private lands? I explained that every Jewish town and village "beyond the green line" (about 500,000 people today) was built on government land; land that was once controlled by the Turks, the British, the Jordanians (never by private "Palestinians") and now by Israel.
I asked again, "why are our claims inferior to any one else's? Again, he could not answer me but still something was bothering him. I asked him what it was?
He just about blurted, "so what about the Arab rights, what about their state? What is your solution?
Ah, I was waiting for that, the $60,000 question.
I knew I was about to shock these liberal, politically correct ladies and gentlemen from Eupope.
I told them, "They must go".
They asked me to repeat that as if they could not believe their ears.
I said yes, they will not live in peace with us. They indoctrinate their children to hate us and kill us, so they must go, and we will help them. In fact if the world had an honest concern about solving the "Palestinian problem" they would contribute land and resources to resettle them and not feed their hate fantasies. It could be done rather easily.
This really got my Dutch guest going. He said, "why don't the Jews find some place to go, like North Dakota." ( I would have prefered southern California..)
I explained to him that if the entire reason for a Jewish state was physical safety and human comforts, yes that would be a theoretical solution. But, I informed him that I did not leave the USA because I sought security or creature comforts. I am here because this is the only land that God commanded me to live in..
How simple an argument, especially to a group of pastors who claim to take their Bible seriously. You should have seen the looks on their faces. They have finally met a real live Jewish extremist, and without horns.
On the way back to the bus, I asked one of them for his assessment of the Muslim problem inundating Europe. He agreed that there was a real problem. And how to solve it? He said ," we have to hope that the next generation will be better educated and see there are better ways of living together. We must reach out to them and show them a better way. That is all we can do, that is all..."
And if that does not work..there are always flowers and candles.
The Museum Avichayil (My Father the soldier) was established in 1961 to commemorate members of the Jewish Legion in the British Army against the Turks in WW I.
In 2009 a new building was added on the site dedicated to the Yishov's volunteers to the British Army in WW II. In 1939 there were about half a million Jews in Eretz Israel. Close to 40,000 young men and women enlisted in the British Armed Forces in order to join the fight against Hitler's Germany.
On a beautiful June day, Shalom Pollock's troops go for a trip to rediscover a part of Israel's history
The Portion of Balak
Bilam the Magician
Balak ben Tzipor sees what happened to his Emorite neighbor and is freightened. He realizes that he will not be able to defeat the people of Israel in conventional warfare.
He turns for help to Bilam ben Be'or, who is known as one who is capable by virtue of his mouth and his curses is able to direct the Almighty to do his bidding.
Bilam responds to the challenge and makes his way to Balak. He asks Balak to erect seven altars at Bamot Baal. He checks out the place and considers at what time would be most opportune to curse Israel. "Perhaps the Lord will by chance happen to appear to me…and he went by himself to check" (Numbers 23;3).
The word "shefi" (by himself to check) with its double "fay" teaches us that he went to check what best time would be for cursing Israel. (Baal Haturim)
