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Media sensation Sam Horowitz loves Israel

Turns out that Sam Horowitz, Dallas boy whose bar mitzvah has become an excruciating ecsdyiastic internet sensation, is also a Zionist. He’s donating his $36,000 haul from the event to an Israeli village sponsored by the Jewish Agency (which performs the magic trick of turning Palestinian land into Jewish land). Haaretz reports:

According to the Jewish Agency, Sam’s parents asked all the guests at the event to make contributions to the Ben Yakir Youth Village in lieu of gifts. The youth village is one of four boarding schools funded by their organization. Sam’s online fans are also being asked to do the same.

The Jewish Agency youth villages were first founded to house and educate Jewish refugee children who fled from Nazi Germany and have served various waves of immigration throughout Israel’s history, providing youth at risk with remedial education and secure living accommodations.

The Ben Yakir village hosts 120 boys aged 12-18, predominately Ethiopian immigrants to Israel.

Other Zionist repercussions in the news. Larry Summers is being considered for the fed chairman nomination (Obama really thinks outside the box). I’m reminded that of course Summers once opposed divestment measure at Harvard saying that it was anti-Semitic in effect if not in intent. Summers established a line equating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism that many have since espoused:

“Where anti-Semitism and views that are profoundly anti-Israeli have traditionally been the primary preserve of poorly educated right-wing populists, profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities,” he said.

Oh and another Zionist repercussion: Yesterday I posted about Cory Booker’s web startup having as a former adviser Andrew Zucker, 15. Zucker’s father is CNN president Jeff Zucker. From Zucker’s back pages: After September 11, John Hockenberry, then at NBC Dateline, wanted to do a piece on the origins of Muslim extremism.

It had occurred to me and a number of other journalists that a core mission of NBC News would now be to explain, even belatedly, the origins and significance of these organizations. But Zucker insisted that Dateline stay focused on the firefighters. smiled at me and said, in effect, that he had no time for any subtitled interviews with jihadists raging about Palestine.

Is Jeff Zucker a Zionist or did he just passively reflect the Zionism inherent in the media culture? I’m not sure it matters. But that confusion is why I think it’s so important for intelligent reporters to talk about the ideology of Zionism.

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i’m sure that sam’s donation was the consequence of a heartfelt if difficult decision, given what a devastating effect it will likely have on his lifestyle. very selfless indeed. haaretz sums sam up nicely if unintentionally with its headline:

Sam Horowitz, star of the newly viral video, makes a spectacular entrance in sparkly white suit in the lavish ballroom of the Omni Hotel in Dallas.

like mother of sam says, he ‘wants to be famous in the entertainment industry.’ it may not turn out exactly like that, but that’s a sparkly, inspirational story.

RE: “Zucker insisted that Dateline stay focused on the firefighters, smiled at me and said, in effect, that he had no time for any subtitled interviews with jihadists raging about Palestine.” ~ John Hockenberry

FROM WIKIPEDIA [Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media]:

[EXCERPTS] “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” (1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is an analysis of the news media, arguing that the mass media of the United States “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion”.[1] . . .

Editorial bias: five filters
Herman and Chomsky’s “propaganda model” describes five editorially distorting filters applied to news reporting in mass media:
Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation: The dominant mass-media outlets are large firms which are run for profit. Therefore they must cater to the financial interest of their owners – often corporations or particular controlling investors. The size of the firms is a necessary consequence of the capital requirements for the technology to reach a mass audience.
The Advertising License to Do Business: Since the majority of the revenue of major media outlets derives from advertising (not from sales or subscriptions), advertisers have acquired a “de-facto licensing authority”.[4] Media outlets are not commercially viable without the support of advertisers. News media must therefore cater to the political prejudices and economic desires of their advertisers. This has weakened the working-class press, for example, and also helps explain the attrition in the number of newspapers.
Sourcing Mass Media News: Herman and Chomsky argue that “the large bureaucracies of the powerful subsidize the mass media, and gain special access [to the news], by their contribution to reducing the media’s costs of acquiring […] and producing, news. The large entities that provide this subsidy become ‘routine’ news sources and have privileged access to the gates. Non-routine sources must struggle for access, and may be ignored by the arbitrary decision of the gatekeepers.”[5]
Flak and the Enforcers: “Flak” refers to negative responses to a media statement or program (e.g. letters, complaints, lawsuits, or legislative actions). Flak can be expensive to the media, either due to loss of advertising revenue, or due to the costs of legal defense or defense of the media outlet’s public image. Flak can be organized by powerful, private influence groups (e.g. think tanks). The prospect of eliciting flak can be a deterrent to the reporting of certain kinds of facts or opinions.[5]
Anti-Communism: This was included as a filter in the original 1988 edition of the book, but Chomsky argues that since the end of the Cold War (1945–91), anticommunism was replaced by the “War on Terror”, as the major social control mechanism.[6][7] . . .

SOURCE – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Political_Economy_of_the_Mass_Media

Nothing like a blowout to turn a boy ethnic cleanser into a man ethnic cleanser…

You’re indefatigable, Phil.
So many good stories, and yet nobody seems to be covering them.

“an Israeli village sponsored by the Jewish Agency (which performs the magic trick of turning Palestinian land into Jewish land). ”
All the Jewish Agency website says about Ben Yakir’s location is that it is “near Hadera”, a town within Israel proper.
Is this Jewish boarding school over the Green Line or otherwise on Palestinian land?