Mainstream pro-Israel groups and politicians have made the Boston Mapping Project into a punching bag. Many are using the Mapping Project to bash the campaign targeting Israel with boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and to affirm the center-right pro-Israel line that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. A group of Congress members even stated that the project was likely to result in “violent attacks by supporters of the BDS movement” against Jews and Jewish organizations. The FBI has met with Jewish groups in Boston and said it is “tracking” the project over these concerns.
In February a Rochester, NY, radio station aired a wonderful panel, of pro-Palestinian activists, one of whom deplored children being “taken from their parents” in nighttime raids. Pro-Israel groups attacked the station for the allegedly antisemitic charge that Israeli soldiers “rip children from their parents’ arms.” Well, they do rip children from their parents arms. And the silence of local progressive activists in the face of the antisemitism claim is dismaying.
As more and more young Jews say that Israel practices “apartheid” or “genocide” against Palestinians, Israeli President Isaac Herzog calls on the U.S. Jewish community to push back against these Jews. But he never mentions Palestinian conditions that alienate American Jews.
As a married Jewish couple living in South Bend, Indiana, we try to ground our lives in the best values of our tradition. That’s why we chose, on this year’s Nakba Day, which fell not just on Shabbat but also several days into Israel’s latest war on the people of Gaza, to pray for Palestine outside the gates of our local Jewish Federation. We recited a prayer for peace and added a new line: “May Palestinian-led struggle, including BDS, swiftly and peacefully replace Israeli apartheid with full equality and make the Right of Return a reality.”
While The Jewish Federations of North America claim apolitical status and operate tax-exempt charities, it is one of the most significant institutional purveyors of anti-Palestinian bias in Canada.
In “The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex,” Lila Corwin Berman takes a deep — and brave — dive into the inner financial workings of the American Jewish community role in contributing to the entire American philanthropy industry.
A shocking report on a meeting organized by the Jewish Federations of Detroit at which powerbrokers said they were “socking away money” to defeat Rep. Rashida Tlaib because she supports boycott of Israel is evidence of “hate” and dehumanization of Palestinians, Rep. Tlaib says.
Joe Biden has bragged of raising money from the Israel lobby group AIPAC, declared “Israel…the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East,” professed, “I’m a Zionist,” and in 2014 said he had told Netanyahu, “I love you. Read an overview of Biden’s remarks on Jews and Israel, including his belief that efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, or even to protest the 2014 Gaza onslaught, are anti-Semitic.