First … Happy Saint Valentine’s Day, the non-Jewish world’s Tu B’Av.
Second,
Check out these cute Jewish cards from KESHET
Third, Mazal Tov (Muscle Tough) to celebrity Andy Cohen, the Jewish Poster Boy to those Americans who watch Bravo-TV and CNN. Who else would have an evening cable talk show and have a rabbi as his bartender/sidekick? People Weekly magazine has the EXCLUSIVE story on the birth of Benjamin (Benny) Allen Cohen as reported by Jess Cugel HERE.
Remember the scene from Ephraim Kishon’s 1964 film with Topol, Sallah Shabati, where the JNF (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael) replaces the signs on donated trees each time an American Jewish group of donors arrives? Or how they have Birthright Israel groups plant trees only to uproot them for the next tour groups? (Naturally, you have to since trees can only be planted in certain months for best results). Well the JNF reportedly screwed some top donors when they bulldozed a planted forest and probably threw the plaque honoring Ambassador Chiune Sugihara unceremoniously into a Dumpster in Beit Shemesh.
Over three decades ago, as Sugihara was ill and dying, this righteous savior of Jews was honored with a grove of trees. Many Japanese supporters of Israel and Sugihara, and those saved by him, donated to the JNF in his honor. The area was quietly destroyed for a real estate developer a few years ago. When his son, Nobuki Sugihara, visited Israel this year with his family to show them the grove and discovered apartments where the groves once stood, he was saddened and outraged. JNF has sent a letter of apology to the Nobuki and his family. The JNF wrote that it will investigate why they destroyed the area and never replaced it. They added that they will plant a new grove elsewhere in Israel. The JNF also threw in a bullshit excuse saying, that the area did not have “convenient access to the site,” and it was no longer fit “for use as a memorial.” I realize that the JNFUSA differs from the group in Israel, but if their leadership is lauded as being so innovative and entrepreneurial, I think a better policy is the locate groves elsewhere FIRST…. and then decommission the old ones.
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By The Way… did you hear that FOX NEWS rejected an
ad that was ANTI NAZI ?
Fox News found the ad inappropriate…
perhaps since it alienates some of its viewers since it asks whether facism could happen in America.
Yes, the Hollywood Reporter writes that, an ad that was to run on Sean Hannity’s segment was rejected because it warns viewers about the potential dangers of fascism in America. The ad promotes the Oscar-nominated documentary short “A Night at the Garden,” about a 1939 Nazi rally in New York City. Field of Vision, the documentary’s distributor, bought a regional ad through a cable distributor, but it was preempted by POTUS Donald J. Trump’s rally in El Paso, TX.
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Talk About Rejections?…..
Word on the street is that donations to Temple University in Philadelphia have declined after one of its professors went super anti Israel in a speech at the United Nations. “From the River to the Sea???” Sounds more like from the “Delaware River to the Schuylkill River”…. college donations will dry up.
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Is AIPAC circling some wagons? Many Jewish press sites posted stories this week explaining that AIPAC, a Public Affairs c(4) Committee and bot a Political Action c(3) Committee does NOT NOT NOT give money to elected politicians or candidates. Sure, they might advise potnetial donors on who to back, but the group does not directly give Benjamins, Hamiltons, Jackson, Grants, or Lincolns to candidates. Heck… even NYT columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas Friedman wrote a few years ago that lobbyists were influential in prompting a standing ovation for PM Netanyahu on Capitol Hill. And I recall a meeting of the Republic Jewish Coalitiion (RJC) in 2015 when then candidate Donald J. Trump said bluntly, “I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians…”
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Remember Amy Dickinson? She took over at the Chicago Tribune for Dear Ann Landers. Her nationally syndicated ASK AMY column has of late been writing about anti-Semitism and Homophobia. For example, this week, a reader asks how to handle anti-Semitic comments makde by colleagues. her grandparents are Jewish.
Amy responds that you don’t need a Jewish relative and tell them they are offensive.
Has anybody visited VaporFi? 🙂