Newly released FBI data shows that Jews and Jewish institutions were the overwhelming target of religion-based hate crimes in the United States last year.
The 2018 Hate Crime Statistics reported 7,120 total hate crimes last year, compared to 7,175 in 2017, a decline of less than 1%.
Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,550 offenses, and the majority of those — 57.8% — were anti-Jewish.
By comparison, anti-Muslim hate crimes accounted for 14.5% — the second-largest target of religious hate. Anti-Sikh hate crimes accounted for 4.1% of the total.
U.S. Ambassador Friedman to ‘Post’: New policy advances the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace
In a historic reversal of US policy, the Trump administration announced on Monday that it does not view Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. The policy change was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington.
“After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan,” Pompeo said in reference to Ronald Reagan’s position that settlements were not inherently illegal. “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law,” Pompeo said.
By: Dr. Rivkah Lambert Adler – Breaking Israel News; breakingisraelnews.com
“Comfort, oh comfort My people.” Isaiah 40:1
Jerusalem Jane’s Roots
Growing up in the small town of Thisted in northwest Denmark, Jane Kiel could not have imagined that one day, God would weave the strands of her life together in such a way that she would become known as Jerusalem Jane.
Kiel traces her love for Israel to her “most amazing grandparents. I know for a fact that every night before they went to bed, they prayed for each of their children and grandchildren and for Israel.
“It has always been a part of my life and has given me the foundation of everything I believe in and what I stand for. It’s the main factor for why I’m in Israel today. My personal faith in God has followed me my whole life. All of this is what brought me here to Israel.”
In a U.N. General Assembly speech in September, however, Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas didn’t hint of that, saying he would call for “general elections” in the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will not run for re-election, senior Fatah official Jibril Rajoub told Palestine TV on Monday.
Rajoub’s announcement contradicted Hussein al-Sheikh, who recently said that Abbas is Fatah’s only candidate in the next presidential election.
By: Jonathan S. Tobin – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org
How do we avoid mistaking the current wave of anti-Semitism for that of the Nazi past without slipping into complacence?
This week Germany marks the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.” The nationwide Nazi pogrom against that country’s Jewish community took place on Nov. 9-10, 1938, and is chiefly remembered for the destruction of so many Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues—debris filling the streets with shards of glass from shattered windows and doors.
By: Sophie Law – Mail Online & Associated Press; dailymail.co.uk
Melpomeni Dina, 92, wiped away tears during memorial to Jews at the Hall of Names in Jerusalem on Sunday
She was reunited with 40 family members of the siblings she hid, fed and protected during the Holocaust
The descendants, from Israel, hugged Ms Dina to whom they owe their existence on Sunday during reunion
A Greek woman who risked her life to hide a Jewish family from the Nazis during the war says she can now ‘die quietly’ after an emotional reunion with the children they went on to have.
Melpomeni Dina, 92, wiped away tears as she clutched the hands of the family she saved during World War II in a memorial to Jews at the Hall of Names in Jerusalem on Sunday.
The emotional encounter was the first time she had been reunited with the Israeli family of the Jewish siblings that she hid, fed and protected during the Holocaust as a teenager more than 75 years ago.
One by one, the 40 descendants leaned down and hugged Ms Dina to whom they owe their very existence on Sunday, as she sat in her wheelchair and as tears streaked down her wrinkled face.
Palestinians have long declared that Jesus was a Palestinian. So has Rep. Ilhan Omar.
In exploring some of the roots of how and where Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) came to be deemed a Palestinian, the Israeli monitoring agency Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) exposed a Palestinian Authority TV interview in which author Samih Ghanadreh from Nazareth was asked about his new book Christianity and its Connection to Islam. Ghanadeh stated that he personally heard Yasser Arafat several times affirm that Jesus was the first Palestinian martyr, and the TV host replied: “Jesus was a Palestinian, no one denies that.”
The board voted on Wednesday, 5-2, with “just cause” to terminate Spanish River Community High School principal William Latson’s employment, effective Nov. 21.
The principal of a high school in the heavily Jewish-populated Florida city of Boca Raton has been fired by the school board in Palm Beach County after he declined to recognize that the Holocaust occurred.
The board voted on Wednesday, 5-2, with “just cause” to terminate Spanish River Community High School principal William Latson’s employment, effective Nov. 21, according to minutes of the meeting.
“The Washington Post” quickly changed its headline following backlash, acknowledging that it “should never have read that way,” but the real problem here goes deeper than a headline.
On Oct. 27, 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The terrorist leader reportedly detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and three of his children, when U.S. Special Forces raided his hideout in Idlib, Syria. The 48-year-old led a terrorist organization that was responsible for genocide in the Middle East and mass murder abroad.
But the headline for The Washington Post’s obituary initially described the terror chieftain as merely “an austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State.” The newspaper subsequently changed it to read “extremist leader of Islamic State.” Oddly, the first version of the Post’s Baghdadi obituary described him as the “Islamic State’s terrorist-in-chief,” according to a Washington Examinerreport.