A Brief Examination of Some Facts Related to Mass Vaccination

JANUARY 30, 2021 BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon

The case of Israel, leading the world by far in the mass vaccination contest, doesn’t leave much maneuvering room for skeptics. Since Israel launched its vast vaccination campaign in December, it has been witnessing an exponential rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths. By now, the British Mutant has become Israel’s dominant COVID strain. Israel’s health system is on the brink of collapse.

In my article Guinea Pigs United I pointed out that the rise in cases and deaths correlates with the distribution of vaccines. In Israel, the Orthodox Jewish communities that were vaccinated en masse saw COVID cases rise 16-fold, while Israeli Arabs who at large refrained from vaccination saw numbers of COVID cases dropping sharply.

But Israel is not alone. Some other states have followed a similar path and their situation is becoming as catastrophic as the crisis we witness in the Jewish State. 

I would have loved to believe that it is not too late for Britain to postpone the current mass vaccination campaign and closely examine the possible correlation between mass vaccination and mutants.  For those who wonder, I am not against vaccines or modern medical practices, but I do contend that before a nation decides to inject a new substance into its muscle, it may want to verify what this substance is and what are the exact implications involved. It is crucial to verify, for instance, whether the rise in lethal mutations that we have seen in Britain is related to mass vaccination and the vaccine trials that have been taking place in the kingdom since the summer.  The rapid change in the age of COVID-19 cases which we see in Israel and Britain also correlates with mass vaccination. Do we know what are the implications of vaccines on pregnant women or embryos?

It is hardly a secret that those who seem to be enthusiastic about the vaccines are also claiming to be in favour of ‘good science’ or even ‘real’ science as they often refer to it. The statistical facts that are related to mass vaccination are not very promising. Examining the situation in the countries that are engaged in mass vaccination such as Israel, Britain, the USA and the UAE reveal that these countries witnessed a clear decline in COVID cases and deaths during late November and early December. However, just a few days after those countries launched their vaccination campaigns, the numbers of COVID cases and consequently deaths went through the roof.

 In comparison, you should also examine the case of Britain’s neighbours such as France, Belgium and Holland. Those countries are subject to similar climate, urban conditions, and demography, yet COVID’s curve in these countries is completely the opposite: COVID deaths and cases that were in decline since mid-November, early December are still dropping until now.  None of these countries saw a sharp rise in cases, let alone deaths, in the given period (December, January).

 As I was writing these lines I was informed that Portugal is also facing a COVID crisis. A brief examination of its latest data reveals that its COVID curve is identical to Britain and Israel. I obviously assumed that the current sharp rise in COVID cases is somehow related to the vaccine. A quick internet check revealed that Portugal started its mass vaccination campaign on 27 December. As you can see in the graph below, until that date the numbers of COVID cases per day were in clear decline. Yet, 3 days after the mass vaccination campaign started the numbers of cases started to grow exponentially. Portugal’s health system is now on the verge of collapse. Its situation is identical with other countries that favoured the mass vaccination path. 

On Optimism

 Both British and Israeli governments report almost once a day about some ‘positive signs’ that may suggest that the ‘end of the pandemic’ is just behind the corner. These news are usually supported by claims about a ‘decline in cases.’ Needless to mention that reports on the ground usually contradict these optimistic suggestions.  But since we are in a scientific mode, let’s examine the ‘statistics.’

 A quick glance at British and Israeli ‘numbers’ reveal that the numbers of new cases in late January are in sharp decline, and this seems to be positive news,  yet the number of daily deaths keep climbing. This is very worrying.

However, a quick examination of other European and Middle Eastern COVID statistics in countries such as Austria, France, Germany and Jordan reveals that the graphs representing numbers of new cases and daily deaths are almost identical in shape. How do we then explain the peculiar anomaly that is reported in Israel and Britain: a ‘decline’ in cases on the one hand, a sharp exponential rise in deaths on the other?

 One (clumsy) possible explanation is that in the mass vaccinated countries less people are contracting COVID, yet for those who do the virus is far deadlier. This would mean that that if the vaccine is producing some positive results for the vaccinated (such as immunity), the general impact on the whole of society is pretty devastating, the number of deaths is growing rapidly.

 Another explanation which I believe is far more likely is that both the British and Israeli governments are conducting less tests. This obviously leads to a reduction in the number of new verified cases. It may look good in the Guardian or the Jewish Chronicle’s headlines but unfortunately it doesn’t stop the disease or its lethal impact.  

 In Israel, mass vaccination was Bibi’s genius political ploy, except that it didn’t work very well (so far). It is more than likely that Trump also gambled on a vaccine being approved ahead of the election.  As we know, Pfizer actually announced its ‘success’ very soon after the election. Needless to mention that Boris Johnson shares one or two features with Bibi and Trump.  It is more than likely that in the USA, Israel and Britain, mass vaccination was unleashed as a political tool. Peculiarly, it is the progressive and leftist crowds who are most enthusiastic about the vaccines delivered to them by the most outlandish right wing political icons of our time.

What is it that drives certain nations to morph into testing grounds with some possible grave implications? What is it that drives some nations to the vaccine yet pushes others to be vigilant and suspicious? I will try to address these crucial questions in my next paper.

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In the WW3 In Which We Live

 JANUARY 19, 2021 BY GILAD ATZMON

https://gilad.online/writings/2021/1/19/in-the-ww3-in-which-we-live

by Gilad Atzmon

Finally, it landed on me: WW3 is here and it is an unforgiving battle between the ‘vaccinated’ and the ‘sceptics’. It is a vicious struggle between those who are convinced that Pharma, Gates and Fauci are committed to salvaging humanity and the rest, who insist on believing in the bond between man and the universe (the sun, the soil, the sea, the human organ, the viruses around, Covid-19 included).

WW3, as such, is a vicious confrontation between people who are libidinally thrilled by social distancing and those ‘suicidal’ characters who are actually nostalgic about human interaction, fresh air, and freedom in general.

WW3 is an animus struggle between two groups: the first is those who insist upon the notion of ‘real science,’ probably failing to distinguish between ‘science’ and ‘technology.’ The others seem to understand that while science is an attempt to understand the universe, technology is the art of translating that understanding into profit. There is obviously a difference between understanding what Covid-19 may be (science), and the wall-to-wall attempt to translate it into hard cash (technology). Those who believe in the existence of ‘real scientists’ who ‘agree amongst themselves,’ fail to grasp that such a notion is in itself non-scientific as science is not a matter of consensus. The progress of science is actually defined and determined, like art, by creativity and the defiance of accepted paradigms i.e., consensus. Those who talk to us about ‘real science,’ must be blind to the fact that the history of scientific revolutions is a tale of relentless intellectual dissidence.

In the WW3 in which we live, there is neither ‘Left’ and ‘Right’, nor is there ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’ there are no states and borders. The world is literally divided in the middle. People who believed themselves throughout their entire lives to be ‘Leftists’ and opposed Trump evidently warmed up to his views. This certainly isn’t because they approve of Trump’s abrasive style or politics; They opened up to Trump because he communicated an existential sense they experienced themselves. While many expected Trump to be politically obliterated by Covid-19, it seems that his approach to the pandemic brought him many new supporters.  

But it may as well be deeper: people who were devoted peace lovers and Palestine supporters in particular suddenly noticed that the same vile Orwellian measures that were inflicted upon them are now used against pretty much half the American people and Covid dissenters. We basically detect an emergence of an unusual alliance that is yet to be realised, but surely will be exploited, if not by the current Trump, then by Trump 2.0.  

In the WW3 in which we live, those who call themselves ‘anti-fascist’ happen to be the fascists of our time , yet those whom they castigate as ‘racists,’ ‘fascists’ and even ‘supremacists’ are often found at the forefront of the battle for universal freedom of thought and elementary human rights.  Seemingly, many of the people who, for some reason, still refer to themselves as ‘Leftists’ have bought into the most problematic Hitlerian ideas. They insist that people should be identified politically by their biology (Identitarians), by their skin colour (unless it is white), by their gender (as long as it isn’t male) and by their sexual preference (heterosexuality excluded). Hitler also believed that German speaking people should identify politically by their biology: ‘race,’ so to say,  as long as they weren’t Jewish or Romani. In the upside-down world that happens to be our reality, the working class or more accurately, the workless class (defined pretty much by socio-economic conditions) ended up with Trump, Brexit, the Tories (in Britain) and the Yellow Vests (in France and other Western European countries). 

In terms of socio-economic political identification, the Left and the Right swapped sides. It wasn’t a political transition; it was actually metaphysical and existential shift. As things stand, the progressives/Left/liberals are bonded with big tech, the mainstream media and Wall Street, while the Right has morphed into a populist movement verging on revolutionary thoughts.  

Israel, for one political reason or another, is by far ahead of every other country in the mass vaccination contest. Israel has already injected the Pfizer ‘miracle’ into more than a fifth of its population and is a perfect testing ground for WW3 in terms of the politics, strategies, ‘science’ and human rights issues at play.  Despite the mass vaccinations (or because of them), the Covid-19 epidemic is taking a very hard toll on Israel’s citizens. Like Britain, Israel’s health system is on the verge of collapse. Like in Brazil, hospitals are running out of oxygen. Despite government attempts to fiddle with numbers, the number of critical cases in Israel keeps rising every day. It is particularly fascinating to examine the Israeli case in light of the early Zionist promise. Israel’s Zionist founding fathers promised to make the new Hebrews brave and fearless. Zionism vowed to make them organically bond with the soil and the sun. 

That Zionist social experiment didn’t work as well as expected. In 2021’s Jewish State, Pfizer’s vaccine has replaced the good old chicken soup. The Israelis have agreed, so far, to act as Guinea pigs for the world to witness. The results are not yet convincing. There are rumours that both Hamas and Hezbollah are considering retirement, admitting that Pfizer achieved far more than they ever wished for. As it seems, the only Israeli communities that seem fearless and actually fulfilled the Zionist dream are the orthodox Jews and the Arabs. It is worth mentioning that neither the Orthodox nor the Israeli Arabs (Palestinians really) were ever suspected of being Zionists, they are just authentic human beings.

I read in the press that there are calls in different countries to impose legislation that restricts those who are subject to quarantine to wear GPS wristbands that will determine their obedience. If I am correct and the WW3 in which we live is an unforgiving battle between the vaccinated and the sceptics, maybe we should apply the same technology and wristband both the vaccinated and the sceptics just to make sure they stay apart. Naturally these two camps do not and should not mix with each other. These two camps seem to be suspicious of each other, and for obvious reasons believe they are existentially threatened by one another.

In previous big wars, people fought over territories, over states’ borders lines, over ideology, often people struggled for freedom. I can’t really see at this point in time how peace can prevail and how this WW3 may come to a harmonious end. I can’t even imagine what defeat or surrender may entail in this war but it doesn’t look good.

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Guinea Pigs United

 JANUARY 09, 2021 BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon

Not many countries are brave or reckless enough to execute a vast medical experiment on their entire population and put vulnerable people at risk. Britain and Israel did.

On December 8, Britain was the first Western country to start “immunising its population.” Two weeks later, just a few days before Christmas, Britain grasped that it was in serious trouble. Covid-19, the virus that was supposed to disappear from our lives, mutated into something else. On December 19, PM Boris Johnson admitted that British scientists had identified a new Covid-19 mutant that is ‘70% more transmissible’ than its ancestors. Britain introduced tighter local restrictions, yet despite these, along with the vast vaccination campaign, the numbers of Covid-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths kept rising. They are escalating exponentially on a daily basis.

 Israel launched its mass vaccination campaign a few days after Britain. Within the next two weeks, Israel managed to vaccinate nearly 20% of its population. Israel is by far the world winner when it comes to the mass vaccination contest, but the country is also in big trouble. Like Britain, Israel is facing a huge Covid-19 surge. Its national health system is on the brink of collapse and the inevitable question is if these similar (if not identical) health crises are related to them both pioneering vast covid-19 vaccination campaigns.

Today, In the biggest Israeli news outlet News12, Israeli computer scientists revealed that the British Mutation is about to become the dominant Covid-19 strain in Israel. You may wonder how the British mutant strain managed to make Aliya and settle so comfortably in the Jewish State. The News 12 article may answer the question. “Cases in Israel aren’t rising uniformly: there is a significant slowdown in the (Israeli) Arab sector, which in the past was the main area of concern. On the other hand, there is a major outbreak in the (Jewish) ultra-Orthodox sector. This week 1.3% of all ultra-Orthodox came out verified, and the rate of increase in cases of children (63%) this week was almost double that of adults. Among the ultra-Orthodox sector, there was a 16-fold increase in the number of verified people within four weeks: this is a doubling every week – from 100 verified people per day (per million people) to 1,600 verified people, and all within a month. Such a growth rate is not seen throughout the plague and is probably due at least in part to the British mutant. It is estimated that the British mutant is about 20% of all ultra-Orthodox verified.”

This must raise eyebrows. Why would the British mutant strain spread so vastly amongst orthodox Jews? Why doesn’t it spread as quickly in the Arab population?

We may be able to stumble upon a very crucial piece of information here. Israeli Arabs may be doing better on the Covid-19 front because many of them seem to be reluctant about the vaccine. The Israeli Marker’s headline on 27 December stated: “A cause for concern: (Israeli) Arabs do not come to get vaccinated.” The Marker pointed out that Jewish citizens from all over Israel travel to Arab villages and cities to receive the vaccines that were designated to Arabs. According to a duty manager of a vaccination centre in Nazareth, 70-80% of the those who come to receive the vaccine were Jewish. Some of them travel as much as 50 km to do so.

But the story doesn’t end here. On January 3, the Israeli news website Walla reported that  “the  ultra-Orthodox are leading the population vaccination campaign.”  Walla confirmed that ‘the percentage of people vaccinated against corona among ultra-Orthodox society is higher than the rest of the population of all ages.’

It is beyond me why the Israelis decided to become guinea pigs in this reckless unscientific experiment in human lives. One option that can’t be dismissed is that Israel is once again heading towards an election and it is more than likely that Israel’s leaders believed that a mass vaccination campaign may translate into an electoral success.

As things stand at the moment, it is hard to deny the possibility of a correlation between mass vaccination and a sharp spike in Covid-19 cases in both Israel and Britain. It is hard to deny the fact that Israeli Arabs who at large avoid the vaccine are doing far better than the Jewish orthodox who seem to also believe in Pfizer. 

Alongside the revelations about the British strain, we also learned about a South African strain that is highly dangerous and possibly resistant to the current vaccines. It takes very little research to figure out that South Africa, together with Brazil and Britain, had been the testing ground for new vaccine trials since September. It is hardly a secret anymore that this was at roughly the same time that the new mutants were discovered in Britain at least.

I point here at the devastating possibility of a link between mass vaccinations and Covid-19 spikes. I am not qualified to support or explain the science that may cause this correlation. My facts are supported by data that is available to the wider public through mainstream news outlets. I am not an epidemiologist or a virologist and I really hope that people with the appropriate scientific training can refute the issues raised above. 

Sometimes I really wish to be wrong.   

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A State Within (NY) State

 OCTOBER 08, 2020BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon

Amid a new surge of COVID-19 in New York City’s Orthodox Jewish communities, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo decided to temporarily close public and private schools in several areas with large Orthodox populations.

Watch CBS’ News report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSrzYBvm_JQ

Unsurprisingly some Jews are upset.  Less surprising is the fact that a few Jewish leaders have pulled the ‘antisemitic card’ just to make themselves look spectacularly ridiculous, as the numbers aren’t exactly on their side.

https://players.brightcove.net/fb622364-04f8-4077-b758-425bd55533a8

The facts are unfortunately undeniable: top government officials, including Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, are alarmed by the sharp rise in C19 Cases in zip codes with large Orthodox Jewish communities in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens and in a couple of nearby counties.

The areas that are subject to the new measures represent 7% of the city’s population but have been responsible for about 20% of the new cases in the past four weeks. Orthodox Jewish communities are clearly statistically overrepresented and, at least within the context of the mainstream C19 paradigm, pose a danger to their neighbours as well as themselves.

Those who follow Israeli news aren’t surprised by the surge in C19 cases in NY. In the Jewish State Haredi Jews who are 12% of the population are responsible for 40% of the C19 cases. In Israel as in NY, Haredi Jews are overrepresented in the C19 statistics. It has been revealed in the last weeks that about every 3rd orthodox Jew in Israel is C19 positive. In the Jewish State, the Haredi population  is regarded as the prime cause for Israel becoming the reddest country in the world. Accordingly, Orthodox neighbourhoods and ghettos are subject to close policing measures and are regarded as red zones.

The story points at a clear clash of civilisations between Orthodox communities and their neighbours. It seems that some Orthodox communities do not buy into the Covid 19 hysteria. Not only have they implemented a herd immunity philosophy, they have been very effective in putting this dissenting paradigm into play. Earlier this week, some young Yeshiva students admitted on Israeli TV News 12 that their Yeshivas were operating as hubs for C19 infections. “We were locked in the Yeshiva all 600 of us, everyone was infected, we all survived,” one Yeshiva boy told the camera.  Another Yeshiva student admitted that the philosophy was to spread the disease amongst youngsters while protecting their elders. When an older Orthodox member of the community was challenged by the Israeli reporter about the Orthodox community’s dismissal of the government’s Covid 19 regulations his answer was clear.  We live in a “state within state!” he said. What he meant was plain and simple: we follow our own laws and serve our own community interests in accordance with our belief system.

I confess that like the Orthodox Jews I am a strong believer in the effectiveness of herd immunity. I believe that a virus that has a 99.998% survival rate is probably safer than any future vaccine. Yet, there is a serious problem with the Orthodox implementation of herd immunity. Herd immunity can only work when practiced in a controlled and regulated manner within a collective that is responsible and responsive. It,  for instance, demands careful measures to protect  vulnerable elements within the community (care homes, the elderly,  people with health complications etc.).

It is possible that part of what made NY into a killing Zone in the spring and what has made Israel into the reddest Covid 19 country in the world is the fact that while the most members of society try to avoid infection and  attempt to “flatten the curve,”  another persistent segment in society is doing the opposite. It actually works to push towards an exponential surge of the virus.   This collision between avoidance and committed spreaders is a recipe for a disaster.

Israel is facing such a disaster currently, NY political officials may grasp by now that their reluctance to act in time and restrain the orthodox communities may helped make NYC into a killing zone in the early stages of the pandemic.

One may wish to believe that Cuomo and de Blasio weren’t aware of Jewish orthodox  ‘scientific’ experiment but this strains credulity considering the fact that the Orthodox’ herd immunity tactics have  not exactly been kept secret. On July 9, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency  revealed that “ NY ultra-Orthodox are acting like they have herd immunity. The Jewish outlet wrote that “ inside the (orthodox) communities, the overwhelming perception is that most people have had the virus and may now be immune.” One Williamsburg health administrator told the Jewish outlet, “that’s the feeling, that they’ve had it, everybody they know has had it, and the people they know who haven’t had it have some kind of immunity that we just don’t understand yet.”

Back in July, local NY health care providers and administrators say surveys and tests suggest that as many as 70 percent of the community has had COVID-19 and recovered, and that new cases have slowed or stopped entirely in their neighbourhoods, despite a near total return to normal behaviour, including large gatherings. 

I pointed out in my last article that the Orthodox covid-19  herd immunity model  provides us with a compelling case study of the virus and the way it is spread. Unfortunately it also presents us with a window into the dismissal of otherness that is deeply embedded in that specific tribal culture.

It would hardly be a problem if orthodox communities were experimenting with herd immunity behind ghetto walls in total segregation and then hopefully beat the disease, yet,  consciously  infesting their own society with the virus while letting members of their the community using the Subway in NY, or public transport in Jerusalem is actually reckless behaviour with some grave consequences.

The Israeli PM allowed it to happen probably because of political reasons. His survival  is dependent upon orthodox political support. Netanyahu refrained from addressing the issue for far too long and the consequences are clear. There are voices in Israel that already point at Netanyahu’s Covid failure as a colossal crime that demands a criminal probe. The same applies to Cuomo and de Blasio, their reluctance to act and restrain the recklessness of the Jewish orthodox communities in time is probably one of the reasons that NYC became a killing zone. 

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The End of Israel

by Gilad Atzmon

The lesson to be drawn from the current Israeli political stalemate is that Israel is imploding, breaking into the elements it has never managed to integrate into one. The schism is no longer the more quotidian dichotomy of Ashkenazi vs. Arab Jews (aka Sephardim); this divide is ideological, religious, spiritual, political, ethnic and cultural. Nor does it break down to Left and Right, Jewish Israelis are politically with the right even when they pretend to be ‘Left.’ Although some of the most astute critical voices of Israeli politics and Jewish fundamentalism are Israelis (such as Gideon Levi, Shlomo Sand, Israel Shamir and others), there is no political Israeli Left. Israeli politics break down into a lot of extreme right voters and many ordinary hawks. The Arab Joint List Party is practically the only Left party in the Israeli Knesset. This should not be surprising any more. Jewish Left, as I have been arguing for many years, is an oxymoron; Jewishness is a form of tribal identification and Left is universal. The ‘tribal’ and the ‘universal’ are like oil and water, they do not mix very well.

What is peculiar about the Israeli political divide is that the Israelis are more united than ever in their nationalist beliefs and in the primacy of their Jewish symptoms. Why is it, if the Israelis are so unified, that no one can form a government in their so-called ‘Jewish State’?

 Avigdor Lieberman, formerly an enthusiastic Netanyahu ally and himself a radical Jewish nationalist, delved into the Israeli political deadlock yesterday. He maintained that the elections had already been decided: “The ultra-Orthodox and Messianic bloc reaches 62-61 seats.” The leader of the rabid nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu said, “If there is no voting rate of at least 70% in Gush Dan and Sharon, the Halacha government will be established.”

Basically, Lieberman said that unless secular Israelis in Tel Aviv go to the polls, they should expect to live in a Halacha State under an ultra right wing Netanyahu government.  Lieberman appears to hold the key to Israel’s political stability. Although he and Netanyahu are ideological twins regarding Israeli security and nationalist matters, the two are bitter rivals who fight aggressively against each other. Netanyahu has known for a few years that, absent a strong ultra right wing government, he can expect to spend some time behind bars, an adventure that has become common for Israel’s prime political figures.  Netanyahu’s natural partners are the ultra right parties and the orthodox parties. Ideologically, Lieberman should also feel comfortable within such a political coalition but Lieberman has made a crucial political decision, essential for his political survival. A while back he grasped that his political home base, Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of them barely Jewish and subjected to constant rabbinical terror, regard the Jewish Orthodox parties as their ultimate foes. Many of these Russian and Ukrainian Jews hold ultra right wing political positions but also see the Rabbis as an imminent threat to their survival.

Theoretically, Lieberman could broker a huge unity coalition with Netanyahu at the top, joined by Blue and White (Kachol Lavan) and its three right wing field marshals, Lieberman’s own party and probably the Labour party. Such a coalition would hold around 80 Knesset seats, more than enough to sustain a strong government but this coalition would refuse to guarantee Netanyahu’s immunity.

 Netanyahu gambles instead on a weak ultra right wing religious government, a government that may not hold for very long but would buy more time for its PM to stay out of jail.

 This conflict at the heart of Israeli politics is a window into the Jewish state and its fears. Israel is rapidly becoming an Orthodox Jewish state. Israel’s Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing group in the country. They are also the country’s poorest population, 45 percent live below the poverty line in segregated communities. Ordinarily, one would expect the poor to support the left, but Israeli Torah Jews are rabid nationalists and openly lend their support to Benjamin Netanyahu and his party.

Prof. Dan Ben-David of Tel Aviv University warned recently that Israel could cease to exist in a couple of generations. He pointed to the astonishingly high birth rate among ultra Orthodox Jews and predicted that, based on current trends, they will comprise 49% of Israel’s population by 2065. The ultra Orthodox parties are destined to dominate the Knesset within a generation or less. Ben David  predicts that their dependence on Israel’s welfare system will lead to a rapid decline is Israel’s economy. This is economically damaging enough and is made worse by the refusal of most rabbinical schools to incorporate standard Western subjects such as mathematics, science and English into their core curriculum. Consequently, Israel is educating a growing percentage of its population in a fashion that fails to equip them to contribute to the needs of a hi-tech society that is immersed in a conflict for survival.

 The picture that comes across is peculiar. As Israel becomes increasingly Jewish and fundamentalist in its nationalist and religious ethos, it has also become more divided on everything else. The Russian immigrants find it impossible to live alongside the ultra Orthodox and vice versa. The secular enclave in Tel Aviv is committed to seeing their metropolis as an extension of NY. The Israeli Left has morphed into an LGBT hasbara unit. It has practically removed itself from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Jewish settlers adhere to the concept of a ‘Two Jewish States Solution.’ They want to see the West Bank become a Jewish land. Orthodox Jews are barely concerned with any of these political issues. They well know that the future of the Jewish state belongs to them. All they need to do is sustain a productive secular Jewish minority to serve as their milk cow.  On top of all of that we face Bibi’s survival wars that threaten to escalate any minute into a world conflict.

In light of all of this, the Palestinians are in relatively good shape.. They simply need to survive. Israel seems to be Israel’s fiercest enemy.

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Purim Blackface

March 22, 2019  /  Gilad Atzmon

By Eve Mykytym

The focus on anti Semitism has become pervasive in the US. Recent backlash to statements by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar have united the left and the right in condemning Jewish stereotypes. But have Jews been held to the same standards when it comes to racism?

According to the Forward, it is not uncommon for Orthodox Jews to dress in blackface for Purim. After someone in blackface attended a Purim party in Los Angeles, Aliza Hausman of Chabad-Lubavitch, who identifies as a mixed-race Dominican Jew, said she believes that the general attitude in the orthodox world is that, “dressing up in blackface for Purim is not racist.”

Nonetheless, it is clear that African Americans find blackface offensive. Blackface isn’t just about a costume, it invokes a racist and painful history.

The first minstrel shows mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern plantations, depicting black people as lazy, ignorant, cowardly or hypersexual.

Later, blackface became a staple of vaudeville, with stereotypes that were fully integrated into American culture. Beyond entertainment, caricatures of mammies and pickaninnies – dark-skinned children with densely coiled hair – as well as grinning, bug-eyed black men adorned everything from postcards to cookie jars.

Then as entertainment evolved, menacing rapists, lazy watermelon eaters, coddling mammies and comic simpletons, all with blackened faces, moved from the stage to the screen. These offensive cultural stereotypes persisted into the 1960s when the civil rights movement was mostly successful in condemning their use.

But, albeit to a lesser degree, blackface has continued and Orthodox Jews are not alone in appearing in the costume.

In 2010, Sarah Silverman tweeted a photo of herself in blackface with the caption “I’m having minstrel cramps.”  (tweet now deleted)

In the last few years, colleges and universities with blackface incidents have includedAlbright College, Brigham Young, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, Oklahoma State University, Purdue University, University of Central Arkansas, University of Nevada at Reno, University of North Dakota, University of Oregon and University of Wisconsin at Whitewater,

This year, Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of Virginia, faced harsh criticism when his medical school yearbook page pictured a man in blackface and a man in a KKK uniform. At the same time, it came out that Attorney General Mark Herring  had also worn blackface in college.

In Florida, Michael Ertel, the Republican secretary of state, resigned after  photos from a 2005 Halloween party showed him in blackface mocking survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

David Pilgrim, director of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Michigan says that for the most part, those who wear blackface now, know exactly what it implies. “It’s a part of the privilege of being white in our culture,” he says. “They are doing it in a safe, white space consistent with the mores of their in-group.”

But unlike others ‘caught’ in blackface, the Orthodox present justifications for their behavior. There seem to be three general arguments as to why some believe it is acceptable for Jews to don blackface for Purim.

The first, articulated by Queens College sociologist Samuel Heilman, is that blackface costumes are a response to racial tensions between Orthodox Jews and Black Americans. Heilman claims that because Orthodox Jewish communities have remained in inner city neighborhoods, they’ve borne the brunt of anti-white backlash at various points since the Civil Rights movement. This argument assumes that the racial tensions are not at least partially caused by the behavior of the Orthodox and posits the offender (dressed in blackface) as the victim.

The second explanation is that Orthodox Jews may not know the history of racism because they may not have grown up with people of color. The assertion that insensitivity results from a lack of familiarity contradicts the argument that blackface is a response to tension between the Black and Jewish communities. Avi Shafran, a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, the leading ultra-Orthodox umbrella group, wrote “The history of minstrelsy is not something familiar to many, if not most, Orthodox Jews. That’s unfortunate, but a fact.”

The third excuse is that Purim is a Jewish holiday. Purim costumes that stereotype other cultures shouldn’t be considered offensive because they’re not about those cultures, they’re about cutting loose for Purim.

This line of thought was illustrated in 2013, when New York State Assembly member, Dov Hikind, an Orthodox Jew, wore a blackface costume to a Purim celebration. Hikind stated that, “If a Jew wears blackface on Purim, it’s certainly not to intentionally insult blacks but only to ‘become’ [an] ‘other, which is what Purim masks are all about.” See Jon Stewart on the subject.

“Purim is a holiday that’s built on collective memory of anti-Semitism and near genocide,” Heilman said. But the story of Purim is not just that Jews were saved from a genocidal plot but that Jews were allowed to slaughter their enemies.

Chabad’s website contains this paragraph about Purim. “On the 13th of Adar that year, the Jews throughout the Persian Empire mobilized and killed the enemies who had wanted to kill them. In Shushan, among the dead were Haman’s 10 sons. Esther asked the king’s permission for the Jews in Shushan to have one more day to destroy their enemy—and the king acceded to her wish. On that day, the 14th of Adar, the Jews worldwide celebrated, and the Jews of Shushan killed more of their enemies, and also hung Haman’s sons. The Jews of Shushan then rested and celebrated on the 15th of Adar… This holiday, called “Purim,” is the most joyous holiday on the Jewish calendar.”

So on this ‘joyous’ holiday, when Jews celebrate their destruction of their enemy, it remains an open question why this celebration may include stereotypes offensive to an ethnic group that, at least at the moment, is far more ‘oppressed’ than the Jews.

source: https://www.evemykytyn.com/writing/2019/3/22/purim-blackface

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