On the precipice of a volcano – history repeating itself for US Jews

T. Belman. That reminds me what was said to me by a drunk WASP who sat beside me on a return flight from London to Toronto. We were talking about three very rich Canadian Jews Jews, Bronfman, Reichman and Belzberg. He said “in every generation Jews claim up the latter of success and then we goyim knock the latter out from under them.”

The bell curve of Jewish existence in the Diaspora tells a clear story: We start at the bottom, reach an apex, and then plummet into an abyss of terrifying violence.

By Ariel Kahana, ISRAEL HAYOM

On the precipice of a volcano – history repeating itself for US Jews

An onlooker stands outside a rabbi’s residence in Monsey, NY, Sunday, following a stabbing attack Saturday night during a Hanukkah celebration | Photo: AP/Julius Constantine Motal

The dark corner of the Washington, DC metro station provided ample opportunity for the guy who spotted the kippah on my head. He wore a plaid shirt and had long, curly hair. “Free Palestine!” he shouted, moving toward me. I tensed up and ignored him at the same time. Luckily, he only carried on for a few more seconds before going on his way.

I’ve walked around dozens of cities across the globe while wearing a kippah, but this was the first time Jewish attire put me in danger and it’s clear that what I experienced last month is simply another incident in a wave that can no longer be denied. American Jewry is under attack.

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Jews are being attacked with knives and guns, physically and verbally, in broad daylight or the dead of night. They are being assaulted in the streets, in their synagogues, and on social media. The virulent eruption is neither isolated nor local. On the East Coast, the West Coast and the vast spaces in between, Jews are in danger simply because they are Jews. This wasn’t the case in America a decade ago, but is certainly the reality today. There’s no point in pretending anymore.

The even worse news is that we’re only at the start of the wave. The bell curve of Jewish existence in the Diaspora tells a clear story: We start at the bottom, reach an apex, and then plummet into an abyss of terrifying violence. Such was our history in Spain, Egypt, and England, in Poland and Russia, Portugal and Iraq, and more. After the golden period, comes the period of hatred. This is what’s in store for our brothers and sisters in the United States. Such is the fate of the Jews, to which only Zionism has offered an alternative.

From a state of destitution and indigence in impoverished neighborhoods, the descendants of Jewish immigrants in the United States climbed the social ladder to inhabit a broad range of key positions – in politics, media, business, culture, and technology. It is at this point, history tells us, that hatred begins to foment. This hatred permeated the intellectual elite in the US a long time ago, spread to the ground level and has carved out a niche in politics as well – due to the failure of Democratic leaders to clearly condemn anti-Semitism two years ago. These were the initial signs, which we all found convenient to ignore.

American Jews, and us with them, hoped this time would be different, that history wouldn’t repeat itself. It is in this belief that they have marched in the footsteps of their forefathers. Then, too, they thought “this time will be different,” that “after all we contributed to the host nation, it won’t reject us,” and that “the lessons of the past have been learned and therefore history won’t repeat itself.” Until, of course, reality provided its inevitable, sobering wake-up call.

The Jews in the United States, sadly, are sitting on the precipice of a volcano. The initial upsurge of lava is bubbling, signaling the massive eruption sure to follow. Maybe this will happen in five years, maybe 50, perhaps in the form of a series of shootings or a wave of neighborhood riots; maybe in synagogues or Jewish community centers; maybe in schools or in the streets. American Jewry is in danger. The time has come for it and us to open our eyes and reach the appropriate conclusions.

December 30, 2019 | 64 Comments »

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50 Comments / 64 Comments

  1. @ Edgar G.:

    Germans had no plans whatsoever for extermination before 1942. They killed the mentally ill but not the Jews, who would ostensibly be the target much more acceptable to German public opinion. Not even the Jewish mental patients were killed initially, nor even the masses of German Jewish communists. Germans cooperated with Zionists on resettling their Jews elsewhere. Zionist education—agricultural and thinly disguised military training—was conducted with the explicit approval of Nazi authorities. The Germans even went so far as to allow Jewish emigrants to take out large amounts of scarce foreign exchange. Unfortunately, American Jewish organizations stonewalled the German efforts, preferring Jews to stay in the Diaspora. In order to bug Germany with the Jewish problem, the United States and Britain rejected the resettling of refugees just anywhere in the world—including the Jewish homeland allotted to us even by the League of Nations. The much-touted German plan of resettling its Jews on Madagascar was not a sneer, but a serious attempt to find any place accessible to Germany and amenable to it. As someone who wants Israel free of Arabs, I have no problem with Germans trying to expel their Jews without significant loss of life.

    The Germans switched to extermination for three reasons. The first reason was that the Allies had blocked all the options for the relocation of the Jews. Jewish refugees could get no visas. When they managed to cross the border illegally, Switzerland turned them back to the Nazis. Britain pressed the governments of Bulgaria and Romania to tighten their lax border policies, which allowed Jews to escape. Britain also pressed Turkey to allow no safe haven to Jews, lest they move afterward “illegally” to the Land of Israel.

    Two, the Nazis wanted revenge: Jews, they thought, were instrumental in Soviet and American aggression against Germany. The reasoning was wrong but not silly: seeing the intense opposition of international Jewry to pogroms and other signals that Jews were not welcome in Germany, the Nazis decided that war was the next logical step after the Jews tried to boycott them.

    Three, an apocalyptic mindset descended on Nazi leaders when they embarked on war with the Soviet Union against the better judgment of the German military. They started thinking in terms of their final obligation to change the world by destroying Jews.
    Edwin Black The Transfer Agreement

    Transfer Agreement Pt. 1

    Transfer Agreement Pt. 2


    Transfer Agreement Pt. 3


    Transfer Agreement Pt. 4

    Agreement Pt. 5 –

  2. @ Edgar G.: Edgar, I am equally confused by this report. I think what may have changed (I am not sure of this) is that he is now deducting the amount they paid to Israeli Arab citizens who are terrorists as well as the PA prisoners. But I am not sure of this. Sometimes the A7 reporters garble their stories, leave out key words, etc.

  3. @ Adam Dalgliesh:

    Meant to post about this a few days ago. It is not rather “repetitious”-or just the not uncommon, bad reporting…… Bennett is cutting the same amount the terrorist entity, paid to “prisoners’ families”…… But the very last sentence of the excerpt, shows that the Israeli govt “offset” an amount including payments to imprisoned terrorists, released prisoners, AND THEIR FAMILIES?

    What am I not understanding….? (unless the Govt. offset was temporary and no longer in effect??)

  4. @ yamit82:

    How do you get of the facts that The Haavara system existed and was very successful, that Hitler first intended to send the Jews to Palestine, that mid level Nazi officials met Lehi reps both in Hermany and Palestine to discuss this matter, where in return, LEHI would attack the British in Palestine…and likely more that I don’t have recall of at the moment..

    I know that …-as Sam Goldwyn famously said- “we’ve passed a lot of water since then”… but in their day, they were relevant.

  5. @ Adam Dalgliesh:

    In different reports there seems a profusion of terms, They have used, “confiscate”..”cut”..offset” “freeze” and etc. They may all have the same initial action, but differ as to the extent, whether the effect can or cannot be reversed, is temporary or permanent.

    Even with a “permanent” confiscation, the Knesset can in a hurry, pass a law replacing that amount with a special grant of the same amount. It’s common for Israel to “unfreeze” frozen terrorist funds.

    So is it all just political talk or meaningful…??

  6. Sounds pretty much to what Felix believes. 😛 ….

    Hitler believed that before monotheism and the Jewish ethical vision came along, the world operated according to the laws of nature and evolution: survival of the fittest. The strong survived and the weak perished. When the lion hunts the herd the young, the sick and weak are always the first victims. Nature is brutal but nature is balanced. There is no mercy. So too in antiquity-the great empires-the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans conquered, subjugated and destroyed other peoples. They respected no borders and showed no mercy. This too Hitler viewed as natural and correct. But in a world operating according to a Divinely-dictated ethical system—where a God-given standard applies and not anyone’s might—the weak did not need to fear the strong. As Hitler saw it, the strong were emasculated-this was neither normal nor natural and in Hitler’s eyes, the Jews were to blame. But to implement his plan he had to get rid of the Jews first. As he said:

  7. @ Bear Klein:

    Proves Felix is wrong about capitalism… It’s True of Capitalist countries, socialist countries and communist countries all funding terrorists directly or State sponsors of terrorists. Greed is Greed in all systems !!! All virulently antisemitic All WRONG about dire predictions of Global Warming effects and causes.

  8. The Talmud (Tractate Shabbos 69) cites the source of anti-Semitism using a play on words: The Torah – the source of the Jewish system of laws, values and moral standards – was received at Mount Sinai. The Hebrew pronunciation of “Sinai” is almost identical to the Hebrew word for “hatred” – sinah. “Why was the Torah given on a mountain called Sinai?” asks the Talmud. “Because the great sinah – the tremendous hatred aimed at the Jew – emanates from Sinai.”

    At Sinai Jews were told that there is one God, Who makes moral demands on all of humanity. Consequently, at Sinai the Jewish nation became the target for the hatred of those whose strongest drive is to liberate mankind from the shackles of conscience and morality.

    Hitler understood….

    “Yes, we are barbarians! We want to be barbarians! It is an honorable title … Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing men from … the dirty and degrading self-mortifications of a false vision (a Jewish invention) called ‘conscience’ and ‘morality.’”

    Hitler’s hatred of the Jews—like the Amalekite’s hatred of the Jews—was not illogical. We can even call it rational, in that he had a reason for it that he understood very well, the elimination of the Jews was not the means to an end. It was an end in itself. What that end was Hitler explained himself in his writings and speeches.

    Hitler believed that before monotheism and the Jewish ethical vision came along, the world operated according to the laws of nature and evolution: survival of the fittest. The strong survived and the weak perished. When the lion hunts the herd the young, the sick and weak are always the first victims. Nature is brutal but nature is balanced. There is no mercy. So too in antiquity-the great empires-the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans conquered, subjugated and destroyed other peoples. They respected no borders and showed no mercy. This too Hitler viewed as natural and correct. But in a world operating according to a Divinely-dictated ethical system—where a God-given standard applies and not anyone’s might—the weak did not need to fear the strong. As Hitler saw it, the strong were emasculated-this was neither normal nor natural and in Hitler’s eyes, the Jews were to blame. But to implement his plan he had to get rid of the Jews first. As he said:

    “The Ten Commandments have lost their validity… Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish like circumcision … The struggle for world domination is fought entirely between us, between the Germans and the Jews.”

    Everything in his war machine was set up for this purpose. At the very end, when the Allies were destroying the German Army, he was not so much bothered by this as he was by the fact that there were Jews still alive.
    (See Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, pp. 220, 242.)

  9. @ Felix Quigley:

    Felix Quigley Said:

    AND the world has to defend itself against what is a product of capitalism and what is our greatest concern, the concern of all concerns, GLOBAL WARMING. I EMPHASISE AGAINST TWO ISSUES, JEW HATRED AND GLOBAL WARMING.

    Marx is your god and Trotsky is his prophet Haaaaaa!!!

    What the hell has the earth warming to do with Jew-hatred? Most Jews are very supportive of the commie hoax of Global warming. Most conservatives and Republicans are not so why no violent attacks against them? Antisemitism is as old as civilization, players may change but the hatred against Jews remains… Pharaoh was antisemitic, as were Haman, Greeks, Romans, christians, pre-christian Slavs, Muslims followers of Mohamed, All European countries including especially Russia and Ukraine. Not included in this group historically are Asian countries and India even to this day. Where it does exist today it is due to Islamic and christian influences and not to CAPITALISM!!! Today countries contributing to the bulk of carbon pollution ar socialist and communist countries not capitalist countries.

    Between the years 250 CE and 1948 CE – a period of 1,700 years – Jews have experienced more than eighty expulsions from various countries in Europe – an average of nearly one expulsion every twenty-one years. Jews were expelled from England, France, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia, Moravia and seventy-one other countries.

    Historians have classified six explanations as to why people hate the Jews:

    Economic — “We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power.”
    Chosen People — “We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people.”
    Scapegoat — “Jews are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles.”
    Deicide — “We hate Jews because they killed Jesus.”
    Outsiders, — “We hate Jews because they are different than us.” (The dislike of the unlike.)
    Racial Theory — “We hate Jews because they are an inferior race.”

    As we examine the explanations, we must ask — Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the “cause” is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let’s look at some contradictions:

    Economic — The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated.

    Chosen People — a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied “Choseness.” And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the “Chosen people,” yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.

    Scapegoat — Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat. The Scapegoat Theory does not then cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient scapegoat target. Hitler’s ranting and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said, “It’s the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society.”

    Deicide — a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). How come the accomplices are persecuted and there isn’t an anti-Roman movement through history? b) Jesus himself said, “Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do.” The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism.

    Outsiders — With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: “We hate you, not because you’re different, but because you’re trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes.”

    Racial Theory — The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew – and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.

    Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. We Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race – but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. We are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness – and, when we do assimilate – for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. We are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that we just can’t win.

    Now we know what are NOT the reasons for anti-Semitism.

  10. @ Felix Quigley:

    Felix Quigley Said:

    AND the world has to defend itself against what is a product of capitalism and what is our greatest concern, the concern of all concerns, GLOBAL WARMING. I EMPHASISE AGAINST TWO ISSUES, JEW HATRED AND GLOBAL WARMING.

    Marx is your god and Trotsky is his prophet Haaaaaa!!!

    What the hell has the earth warming to do with Jew-hatred? Most Jews are very supportive of the commie hoax of Global warming. Most conservatives and Republicans are not so why no violent attacks against them? Antisemitism is as old as civilization, players may change but the hatred against Jews remains… Pharaoh was antisemitic, as were Haman, Greeks, Romans, christians, pre-christian Slavs, Muslims followers of Mohamed, All European countries including especially Russia and Ukraine. Not included in this group historically are Asian countries and India even to this day. Where it does exist today it is due to Islamic and christian influences and not to CAPITALISM!!! Today countries contributing to the bulk of carbon pollution ar socialist and communist countries not capitalist countries.

    Between the years 250 CE and 1948 CE – a period of 1,700 years – Jews have experienced more than eighty expulsions from various countries in Europe – an average of nearly one expulsion every twenty-one years. Jews were expelled from England, France, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia, Moravia and seventy-one other countries.

    Historians have classified six explanations as to why people hate the Jews:

    Economic — “We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power.”
    Chosen People — “We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people.”
    Scapegoat — “Jews are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles.”
    Deicide — “We hate Jews because they killed Jesus.”
    Outsiders, — “We hate Jews because they are different than us.” (The dislike of the unlike.)
    Racial Theory — “We hate Jews because they are an inferior race.”

    As we examine the explanations, we must ask — Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the “cause” is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let’s look at some contradictions:

    Economic — The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated.

    Chosen People — a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied “Choseness.” And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the “Chosen people,” yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.

    Scapegoat — Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat. The Scapegoat Theory does not then cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient scapegoat target. Hitler’s ranting and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said, “It’s the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society.”

    Deicide — a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). How come the accomplices are persecuted and there isn’t an anti-Roman movement through history? b) Jesus himself said, “Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do.” The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism.

    Outsiders — With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: “We hate you, not because you’re different, but because you’re trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes.”

    Racial Theory — The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew – and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.

    Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. We Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race – but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. We are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness – and, when we do assimilate – for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. We are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that we just can’t win.

    Now we know what are NOT the reasons for anti-Semitism.

    The Talmud (Tractate Shabbos 69) cites the source of anti-Semitism using a play on words: The Torah – the source of the Jewish system of laws, values and moral standards – was received at Mount Sinai. The Hebrew pronunciation of “Sinai” is almost identical to the Hebrew word for “hatred” – sinah. “Why was the Torah given on a mountain called Sinai?” asks the Talmud. “Because the great sinah – the tremendous hatred aimed at the Jew – emanates from Sinai.”

    At Sinai Jews were told that there is one God, Who makes moral demands on all of humanity. Consequently, at Sinai the Jewish nation became the target for the hatred of those whose strongest drive is to liberate mankind from the shackles of conscience and morality.

    Hitler understood….

    “Yes, we are barbarians! We want to be barbarians! It is an honorable title … Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing men from … the dirty and degrading self-mortifications of a false vision (a Jewish invention) called ‘conscience’ and ‘morality.’”

    Hitler’s hatred of the Jews—like the Amalekite’s hatred of the Jews—was not illogical. We can even call it rational, in that he had a reason for it that he understood very well, the elimination of the Jews was not the means to an end. It was an end in itself. What that end was Hitler explained himself in his writings and speeches.

    Hitler believed that before monotheism and the Jewish ethical vision came along, the world operated according to the laws of nature and evolution: survival of the fittest. The strong survived and the weak perished. When the lion hunts the herd the young, the sick and weak are always the first victims. Nature is brutal but nature is balanced. There is no mercy. So too in antiquity-the great empires-the Babylonians, Greeks and Romans conquered, subjugated and destroyed other peoples. They respected no borders and showed no mercy. This too Hitler viewed as natural and correct. But in a world operating according to a Divinely-dictated ethical system—where a God-given standard applies and not anyone’s might—the weak did not need to fear the strong. As Hitler saw it, the strong were emasculated-this was neither normal nor natural and in Hitler’s eyes, the Jews were to blame. But to implement his plan he had to get rid of the Jews first. As he said:

    “The Ten Commandments have lost their validity… Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish like circumcision … The struggle for world domination is fought entirely between us, between the Germans and the Jews.”

    Everything in his war machine was set up for this purpose. At the very end, when the Allies were destroying the German Army, he was not so much bothered by this as he was by the fact that there were Jews still alive.
    (See Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks, pp. 220, 242.)

  11. @ Adam Dalgliesh:

    If you want to end or at least cripple terrorism, stop funding it. This is not only true for Israel but all Western democracies. Israel can bring down the whole Palis house of cards simply by ending all transfer payments and subsidies for Israeli goods and services. All violent unrest and attacks must then be brutally subdued.

    Note: All agreements related to Oslo Accords and especially the Paris agreements concerning transfer payments have long ago expired and have never been legally renewed. Israel is no longer treaty obligated under those outdated agreements.

  12. @ yamit82:
    Over 2000 years of pogroms, inquisitions and Holocaust make it clear, Judaism says it unequivocally: “It is an eternal law, Esau (the non-Jew) hates Jacob (the Jew).” This is the eternal law – it is immutable. America is no different, nor Australia, nor Russia, nor Latin America, nor Europe, nor South Africa.

    “If a Jew will forget his origin and true identity and consider himself a full-fledged citizen of the country of his exile… if he thinks that Berlin is Jerusalem…then a raging storm will uproot him by his trunk… the tempest will arise and spread it’s roaring waves, and swallow, and destroy and spread forth without pity.” Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen, The Ohr Somayach, in Meschech Chochma, p. 191-192

  13. @ Chanah:

    Over 2000 years of pogroms, inquisitions and Holocaust make it clear, Judaism says it unequivocally: “It is an eternal law, Esau (the non-Jew) hates Jacob (the Jew).” This is the eternal law – it is immutable. America is no different, nor Australia, nor Russia, nor Latin America, nor Europe, nor South Africa.

    “If a Jew will forget his origin and true identity and consider himself a full-fledged citizen of the country of his exile… if he thinks that Berlin is Jerusalem…then a raging storm will uproot him by his trunk… the tempest will arise and spread it’s roaring waves, and swallow, and destroy and spread forth without pity.” Rabbi Meir Simcha HaCohen, The Ohr Somayach, in Meschech Chochma, p. 191-192

  14. @ Chanah:

    “If the Redemption were to occur in good, peaceful times, when quiet prevailed among peoples many of our Jewish brethren would not want to leave the Exile; for what would they be lacking there? …therefore, these calamities come upon us in order to awaken us to return to our Holyland.” HaKadosh Rabbi Yissachar Teichtal, Em HaBanim Smeich p.67-68 (written in Hungary 1944).

  15. The head of the Shin Bet “warns” against cutting funds to the PA. Unfortunately, the heads of the Shin Bet, like all senior Israeli officials below cabinet level, have to be vetted and approved by a lawyers’ committee before they can be appointed.

    Shin Bet chief warns against deducting PA money
    Nadav Argaman reportedly warned ministers of the consequences of offsetting PA taxes.
    Arutz Sheva Staff, 30/12/19 01:07
    Share

    Nadav Argaman
    Nadav ArgamanHadas Parush/Flash 90

    Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Nadav Argaman warned on Sunday about the implications of deducting funds from the tax money transferred by Israel to the Palestinian Authority (PA).

    According to Channel 13 News’ Barak Ravid, Argaman said during the Cabinet discussion on the matter that while the offsetting of the funds is legal, the move could have a negative impact on relations with the Palestinian Authority.

    “The offsetting of the funds could cause unrest in the area,” the Shin Bet chief reportedly told the Cabinet ministers. “The government needs to decide what kind of relationship it wants it to have with the Palestinian Authority.”

    Israel’s Security Cabinet on Sunday approved Defense Minister Naftali Bennett’s proposal to cut 149 million shekels ($43 million) from the tax funds that Israel transfers to the PA, which is the sum that the PA paid to terrorist families last year.

    Deputy Defense Minister Avi Dichter who initiated the “Pay to Slay” law deducting terrorist salaries from the funds transferred to the PA, responded, “I congratulate Minister Bennett on bringing the report for Cabinet approval following a law I passed in the Knesset with [Yesh Atid] MK Elazar Stern. For too long we have allowed the Palestinian Authority to pay salaries to terrorists. The party is over with the law we passed in the Knesset.”

    To date, Israel has only offset the salaries transferred to Palestinian Arab terrorist prisoners, released prisoners and their families, which amounted to 500 million shekels in 2018.

    The Jews in Israel need to wake up as much as the Jews in the Diaspora.

  16. The situation is both stimulating and very challenging. there needs wide and deep discussion.

    “3. *strategy from the standpoint of Trotskyism for Israel and Jews to defend themselves*

    We are certain that the situation has changed. The Jewish people now are in a double bind. They have to defend against Jew Hatred. but the world has to defend itself in all truth against capitalism … AND the world has to defend itself against what is a product of capitalism and what is our greatest concern, the concern of all concerns, GLOBAL WARMING. I EMPHASISE AGAINST TWO ISSUES, JEW HATRED AND GLOBAL WARMING. The defence against the old hatred, of hating Jews, and the defence against the new most serious menace and terror, the warming of our earth, caused ONLY by capitalism, and which is always primary, because without our earth liveable we have nothing anyway. These two concerns are a great responsibility.”

    https://wedefendisrael.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/israel-must-be-defended-as-we-move-into-2020/

  17. @ Chanah:
    Chanah please if you do not mind, and further to my previous answer not yet showing, let me and other humans stay in the present and in the real world, with all its dangers and problems, to see if we humans can solve these problems, which are not just affecting us humans either. we have a lot on our shoulders.

  18. @ Bear Klein:
    Bear Klein…nobody has picked you up but you are essentially wrong. this piece of rubbish murdered two people. That seems to be missed by all. Those two are dead. it is not good enough to say more could have been murdered. It is pretty much the same question posed by Edgar when he said that Jews and Rabbis can be followed in an active way by these haters. And it is not necessarily Jews either. It can be communists being followed and murdered. Or Climate Change advocates. As to the latter remember the tube train in Docklands incident when two protesters were dragged off a train and battered on the ground, and one photographing was scared for his life.

    So it is not good enough to pass these things by.

    I feel that the comment by Edgar got to the heart of a big issue.

    To conclude…How has this come about. By a huge uneasiness in the whole superstructure. What has caused this…The answer is too long for here but I make a start by pointing out that the armed presence was not nearly enough. Two were murdered.

  19. @ Chanah:
    Chanah you write about Greta ” a teenage brat” quoted direct

    is that how you treat children and youth Chanah. I have seen that strain of cruelty inside of Irish Catholicism too and did not appreciate it. No different with you. Greta is young and has a viewpoint. She said from the beginning … answer the science, answer the scientists on global warming. That is her main and only political statement on the issue. So why the harsh bitterness.

    Also get your bearings here on Israpundit. i am a proud atheist, emphasise proud. I also believe in freedom of expression. Including freedom to examine history. All ideas in our period are up for discussion and nothing will ever stop us now.

  20. @ David Nussbaum:
    That is a good reply because there are no honeyed words and it stamps you out as a Joe McCarthy type so Jews on Israpundit will have to choose if they wish to follow McCarthy.

    You have switched the subject. I was critical of you linking Lenin with the Frankfurt School so called because Marcuse taught relativism and Lenin wrote the definite book against relativism. This issue of relativism came up recently in a discussion between Joe Romm and Tucker Carlson where Carlson said that there can be no definitive conclusions reached by scientific endeavour. Oh yeah! Lenin had it covered and totally covered.

    I do not know who you are but you have no role in Israpundit, because Pacepa is a great fan of Pius 12.

    Have been there Nussbaum and do not wish to know about Pacepa or you

    Bye

  21. @ Felix Quigley:
    You are quite a Leninist. Invent facts and vilify your opponent in attempt to silence him or her. All for the “greater end” of spreading the revolution. I suggest that readers believe neither you nor me but read Lenin’s approach to spreading the revolution which was the only “truth” for him. Marvelous revolution. Claim to care about people, but once in power, become as totalitarian and controlling, stamping out individual freedom as much as possible. Also readers should speak to Communist Survivors…people who lived under communist rule before getting out from under the oppressive yoke of communism. The term “Useful Idiots” was coined by Lenin to describe Liberals in the West who helped undermine Western society and pave the way for the Revolution. Lenin and truth? A complete bit of disinformation. Interested readers should read Pacepa’s book, Disinformation. Don’t take my word for it.

  22. @ Felix Quigley:
    If you’d started with your last paragraph, you could have saved me some time. Is Greta your god now? I prefer the Creator who has been clear to us that Jews need to be in Israel, because yes, the world will see some remaking, but it will be by the Creator, not global warming, and He says Jews need to be in Israel when that happens. So go ahead, trust in a teenage brat, but I’ll trust HaShem. And He is saying that He sent hunters – antisemites- to cause the Jews to leave the exile for Israel. That is the whole point.

  23. @ Edgar G.:
    Edgar I agree with you as I usually do. But i think this brings us back to Israel. the fight against all of these things has to come out of Israel, the one great achievement, but an achievement which is being squandered.

    Into the stupid and empty minds of these assassins of Jews, comes the ideology of those “poor” victims of the Jews, the “Palestinians”.

    That is the ideology that needs to be confronted. How to do precisely that is what is needed.

    And it can be done. There is no reason that it can be done. In fact that is the issue that is at the centre of this Jew Hatred and these physical attacks on Jews.

  24. @ David Nussbaim:
    You write

    “You start a decade or more too late. Start with Lenin, the Frankfort School, the absence of truth and the equivalence of all “narratives,” Pacepa, Alinksky and then you can begin to understand the chaotic world we now live in.”

    No to get a real handle on things at the moment you need to go back much further and indeed to when there was no life at all on earth, and to gain a total understanding of what we are and where we are at.

    Dan Britt, a US scientist, says in a youtube video that in fact we have a very good understanding of at least the past billion years. And he is right. the advances in science, especially climate science, are a wonder to behold.

    your piece has all the signs of you being a huxter, the sort of loud mouth you hear in the bars, people who spout off and know nothing in reality. Sorry to have to point this out.

    So your juxta positioning of Lenin with the relativists, such as those doltish relativists of the Frankfurt School so called,. Lenin wrote the definitive book against relativism and all of his life was based on the ability of man to gain scientific truth…marks you out as, sadly, a loud mouth.

    My advice…if you know little, keep your mouth shut.

  25. Who can deny that the modern phase of jew Hatred is connected with the development of the capitalist system. We live in capitalism. The location has to be found there.

    The centre of Jew Hatred comes from Arab countries who make up the composition of the United Nations, it comes out of Iran the centre of the Islamic Jihad, since 1979, spread to Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam, to Libya after the overthrow of Gadhafi, and the worst expression of all in the part of Syria supported by Obama and Hillary Clinton, IS.

    We can say the centre now is in Britain and the US, the two oldest capitalist countries.

    On a general plane there is massive differences now between the wealth of the rich, and the poorness of the poor. And above all the introduction of alien cultures into these countries.

    Life has become brutish and uncertain. Those were always the breeding ground for Jew hatred.

    Now there is a new uncertainty, this time an uncertainty which mixes with terror. the physical world is heating up, the world is burning, the world is suffocating, the Arctic is melting, that is enticing capitalism to go into the Arctic, bring out more oil, burn it eventually, so one event triggers another. The cold water leaves the ice of the Arctic, changes the direction of current flows in the Oceans, creating more events. What happens in the Arctic never stays in the Arctic. And moreover what happens anywhere on earth in a physical sense never stays there.

    At this moment people in Australia are in panic mode heading to coves at the sea in order to escape the giant fires, not far from Melbourne. It seems all of Australia is burning.

    these are times of great uncertainty.

    What did trump say when elected and asked about Global Warming? Answer nothing really. He had nothing to say. “Dont believe it. Hoax” was about the limit.

    trump is an empty person. he felt correctly, and latched onto, the great concept of nation and fought against globalisation concepts in America. That was and is important and necessary. But neither was or is any country an island.

    But in everything he has failed. he has simply amplified what was already there in America since Nixon abandoned the gold standard and America is now a ripping Ponzi scheme.

    So my question is why should any Jew worth his great heritage be a friend of the republicans, when you see examples like this

    Mark Steyn making fun of Canadians only live on the border area with America…thinks this is funny…a funny statement, but funny only if you are a ruthless loudmouth and barbarian.

    Tucker Carlson in conversation with Joe Romm takes the philosophical position that science must be eternally sceptical, that is true in fact, but how Tucker meant it was that man can never reach any firm conclusion about anything in our lives, which is pure relativism.

    And those are the pin ups for trump.

    So the general feeling among a lot of Jews in America against Trump may be correct.

    1. Global warming will destroy all if left int he hands of capitalism
    2. trump creates a Ponzi scheme out of the American economy.

    and those are not deniable.

    there are also the corrupt, becoming Nazi fascist, against trump, and that is CIA/FBI, Schumer and Pelossi types, as we have seen since November 2016.

    but those who are claiming Trump is some kind of saviour of the Jews, or anybody, are part of the very big problem today.

    there are some truths that must be defended

    no country can survive illegal or even enforced by the UN immigration, legal or illegal…the changes that have to be made have to be made in their home countries

    the earth cannot survive global warming

    The Ponzi scheme of Trump is going to collapse. That is also a scientific fact.

    the leaders of the Jews have not defended the Jews of Israel because they have allowed and even used the illegal immigration of millions of Arabs, and today are not defending Jews. As it stands Israel has failed.

    the big issue today in countries like America and Britain is for Jews to place no reliance on anybody but themselves, and defend themselves by arms in their social gatherings, and organize to fight politically against Jew hatred. Both of these are achievable.

  26. @ Adam Dalgliesh:

    A rabbi is recognisable both in dress and in appearance. Also if he was “approached from behind”…they MUST have been trailing him. Perhaps from a known Jewish enterprise, or even from his home, which would be easy to find by anyone who set out to find the rabbi’s home.

    Need I say that all he has to do is wait outside a selected synagogue and pick him from the congregants…(likely one of the very last to leave). The mamzer could even be standing close to them and hear him being addressed as “Rabbi”. There are many ways The Police are derelict in their sworn duty, which itself raises Jew-Hate issues.

  27. @ Adam Dalgliesh:

    The reason is obvious. The rarely targeted “Jews” are just like goyim; they have no distinguishable features, coloration or dress. They rarely go to or even pass close by, a synagogue, the one place where Jews re certainly to be found-even by the most ignorant Jew-Hater. The Jews who are always attacked, show in their dress, hair style, often complexion, and/or facial expressions, that they are recognisably Jews.

  28. Will write further later. I believe Keinon missed the point. Most American Jewish will not invest in Trump. The point is… have they a point…

  29. @ stevenl:True, Steven L. They are under attack far less often than Orthodox, observant Jews. Jews and half-Jews who have converted to Christianity, or maybe Buddhism or New Age sects, feel completely secure. They are not worried either about antisemitism or radical Islam.

  30. From the Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon.

    Shocking that Jewish Democrat’s USA would blame the Monsey massacre on Donald Trump, and take the occasion to denounce Trump rather than show any real concern for the victims. Keinon is right–the American Jewish community has not reacted appropriately to the threats against it.

    I believe that Meir Kahane was wrong about a great many things, and that his personal behavior was often troubling. However, he was right about one thing–American Jews, and particularly their leaders, are altogether too “comfortable” and secure, and not realistic about continued antsemitism in America.

    Are US Jews unable to agree on who is an antisemite? – Analysis
    Jewish organizations issue condemnations, but why are they not organizing marches against that type of Jew hatred?
    By HERB KEINON DECEMBER 30, 2019 20:57 Email Twitter Facebook fb-messenger
    A woman holds candles while standing in solidarity with the victims after an assailant stabbed five people attending a party at an Hasidic rabbi’s home in Monsey, N.Y., on December 28, 2019, (photo credit: REUTERS/AMR ALFIKY)
    A woman holds candles while standing in solidarity with the victims after an assailant stabbed five people attending a party at an Hasidic rabbi’s home in Monsey, N.Y., on December 28, 2019,
    (photo credit: REUTERS/AMR ALFIKY)

    On November 20, a 30-year old Monsey man was stabbed on his way to morning services.
    On November 29, the Sixth and I synagogue in Washington DC was vandalized, with the world “Jew” carved into a door, along with swastikas.
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    On December 3, in Glen Cove, New York, the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center in Nassau County was vandalized with graffiti, including swastikas.
    On December 10, three people were killed in a kosher grocery in Jersey City. A police officer was also killed.
    On December 14, the Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills was ransacked, prayer books were shredded, and taillitot and kippot thrown to the ground.
    On December 23, a 65-year-old Orthodox man was assaulted, punched in the face and beaten by a man screaming antisemitic slurs in Midown Manahattan.
    On December 24, another Orthodox man was punched on the back of the head by a group of people in Crown Heights.
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    On that same day, in St. Albans, Vermont, signs reading that it is “okay to be antisemitic “ were stapled on telephone poles in the center of town.
    On December 25, an Orthodox man was chased down a street in Williamsburg and punched in the face.
    On December 26 in Brooklyn, a Jewish woman and her son were attacked by a woman yelling antisimetic slurs who hit the mother in the face.
    On December 28. a man walked into the home of a rabbi in Monsey, where a Hanukkah celebration was taking place, and began stabbing people.
    Most of the above, but not all, was taken from a list of antisemitic incidents on the ADL website. The above list is only a partal listing of antisemitic events in the US since November 20, and leaves out a swastika dabbed here, an antisemitic epithet and punch aimed at a random Jew there.
    Following the attack in Monsey, the ADL – like many other Jewish organizations – put out a statement condemning the incident.
    “We are saddened, disturbed, and outraged by last night’s attack in Monsey, NY at a celebratory Hanukkah party. Again, here we are: mourning another act of senseless anti-Semitic violence committed against our community and praying for those who were the victims of this hate,” the predicatable statement read.
    “This is at least the 10th antisemitic incident to hit the New York/New Jersey area in just the last week. When will enough be enough? “
    But there is another question that the ADL could have asked, but didn’t.
    When will Jews take to the streets? What will it take to rally the Jewish community to demonstrate and protest and yell and scream – not though communiques, but rather at organized marches – against the violence directed at them.
    When a right wing fanatic and founder of TruNews rants about a “Jew coup” to overthrow US President Donald Trump, or when Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan, or one of his followers, denounces Jews as “monkeys” and Judaism as a “satanic religion,” where is the Jewish outrage on the streets in protest?
    Granted, Jewish organizations issue condemnations, but why are they not organizing marches against that type of Jew hatred?
    One reason is evident in the following tweeter exchange between the Jewish Democratic Council of America and the Republican Jewish Coalition following the Monsey incident.
    “We are deeply troubled and saddened by the unconscionable spate of antisemitic domestic terrorism,” The Jewish Democratic Council of America said in a statement.
    “At the same time, anyone serious about fighting antisemitism must also consider the cumulative impact of the most powerful US elected official repeating antisemitic stereotypes, amplifying antisemitic conspiracy theories, equating neo-Nazis with those peacefully protesting them, and espousing xenophobic and hateful vitriol. Anyone serious about combatting antisemitism must start by condemning that which emanates from, and is legitimized by, the White House.”
    The Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted in response: “It is absolutely deranged to blame President Trump for the attack in Monsey last night. @USJewishDems clearly doesn’t care about the Jewish victims of antisemitic hate crimes in New York, they simply care about pushing their partisan agenda.”
    With that kind of division among the Jews, is it really any wonder why there has not been more organized Jewish action against the steady drumbeat of antisemitism on America’s streets?
    Yossi Klein Halevi, in a piece that he wrote after Jeremy Corbyn was trounced in the recent British elections, praised British Jewry for the way it was able to rally together and fight back against the rising antisemitism in their midst.
    They were able to do this effectively, he wrote, because they were able to define the enemy, unite all the different sectors of the Jewish community, and develop powerful non-Jewish allies to support the cause as well.
    One reason US Jews are not taking to the streets, is because American Jewry is deeply divided. They cannot agree on who the antisemite is? Or, as Klein Halevi wrote, “American Jews can no longer agree on what constitutes an antisemitic threat, let alone how to fight it.”
    So instead of actively fighting it, instead of taking to the streets to fight it, instead of organizing marches and protests on state capitols to protest it, the US organized Jewish community is issuing statements and communiques.
    And even those communiques and tweets do not show solidarity in the face of this threat, but rather a deeply divided community that – at this time – needs desperately to find common ground, put aside partisan politics, and define who really is an antisemite.
    Only then can the problem be tackled, and — even then — without any guarantees of success. But one thing is certain: You can’t defeat the enemy if you can’t define it. And on something so basic as what is antisemitism, and who is an antisemite, the sad truth is that today among American Jewry there is no agreement – because everything in the US, even that, is now so hyper-politicized.

  31. From The Washington, quote from an article about the Monsey massacre and the increased violence against frum Jews over the last ten years in this town.

    last month, a 30-year-old rabbi said two people approached him from behind on a secluded street in Monsey and beat him for several minutes. Police Chief Brad Weidel has said there is no evidence that the man was targeted for his religion, but concerns flared up in the Orthodox community.

    The police “no evidence” syndrome is the most disturbing aspect in the rise of antisemitic violence in the U.S. Over the past twenty years I have read about at least this many antisemitic attacks in which the police, including sometimes the FBI, have claimed that there was “no evidence” that the attacks were antisemitic in motivation. I have come across press accounts five just “no evidence” antisemitc crimes just in the past week.

    People who claim that there is “no evidence” that antisemitic hate crimes are antisemitic, when the evidence that they are is obvious and undeniable, may be antisemitic themselves.

  32. @ Felix Quigley:
    Sorry Felix,

    You start a decade or more too late. Start with Lenin, the Frankfort School, the absence of truth and the equivalence of all “narratives,” Pacepa, Alinksky and then you can begin to understand the chaotic world we now live in.
    Power would be wonderful, but we Israpundit participants exercise the limited power at our individual and collective disposals. That is to present the often harsh realities of the world to as many people as we can. People are information processors, and while we are endowed with magnificent information processing hardware, it is limited both internally by axonal and synaptic conduction rates, and more profoundly, in most cases, externally by the information available for processing.

  33. Jews who have not already done need to arm themselves and their places of worship. Just like the Christians in Texas who protected themselves.

    Armed Congregants Killed Texas Church Shooter

    A gunman who killed two people during a Texas church service was fatally shot within seconds by armed congregants, said Texas officials, who hailed the state’s gun laws that allow weapons in places of worship.

    More than 240 parishioners were in the West Freeway Church in the Fort Worth area town of White Settlement at the time of the shooting on Sunday, authorities said.

    Parishioner Isabel Arreola told the Star-Telegram that she sat near the gunman and that she’d never seen him before Sunday’s service. She said he appeared to be wearing a disguise, perhaps a fake beard, and that he made her uncomfortable.

    She said the man stood up, pulled a shotgun from his clothing, opened fire and was quickly shot by two congregants who were part of a volunteer security team.

  34. the lubavitcher rebbe was asked if a holocaust could happen here in USA
    he said “Tommorow Morning”
    However, if the USA is not safe for Jews, neither is Israel
    There are many murders and attacks on Jews in israel by the arabs, actually more than in the USA

  35. i have watched over recent weeks the devotees of Israpundit hammering away at their points. And filled my thoughts with an inner question…”What is it all for”.

    But the main thing seems toelude them. They are powerless, the words go wafting off on the breeze, and are useless, a total waste of time.

    they have no power you see, these little people on Israpundit.

    And they do not wish to have power either. They are kept occupied, therefore happy in a way, witht heir arguments.

    But the issue is power and the defence of the Jews at this stage in history is the power that resides in the leadership of Israel.

    and that leadership is condemned as being powerless, and therefore a trap, for the Jews of the earth right from the very word go. Bourgeois Zionism is on view and it is powerless.

    Not Zionism though. I believe nation is an absolutely key concept in our times.

    to sum up in a few ideas of great practical meaning

    1. keep the oil and gas int he ground and under the seas
    2. fight to save our world from global warming
    3. use all resources, trillions if you have it, to tell history as it happened, use every penny to tell this story. You will have to start with Trotsky v Stalin and at least take up some of the points Robert Wistrich made in Jerusalem late in his life

    But can Israpundit do anything like this. I would say not a chance.
    4. stop slandering great young human people like Greta and in fact do the very opposite…meet her and promote her

  36. In the above contribution Adan Dalgliesh only sees the crap, or an expression of the crap, which is Jew hatred.

    He does not see at all the system in crisis which is the fomenting ground for this crap to emerge.

  37. In a period of intense crisis of a system all of the crap comes to the surface and that is what we are seeing.

    Stop defending the system and start opening your eyes and seeing what the system is doing to our world.

    That is not possible i am sad to say for Israpundit to do.

  38. I personally have warned repeatedly to take seriously this Palestinian Arab issue. I have seen in Ireland, personally, how the Arabs skilfully sold the issue based on the emigration meme. i cannot remember one person on Israpundit ever taking an interest in what I was saying.

    the emigration meme in Ireland is very powerful. this is the meme that the forces of antisemitism went to play on.

    Do you get me? even at this late stage can anybody respond.

    i could see how they made hay on this issue day in day out.

    Yet they could have been defeated and they still could or can.

    In all the discussions that I have seen, all of the massively long articles, in many places, I have never seen it understood how the forces of jew hatred used the issue of emigration. in Ireland.

    i have seen thousands of articles attacking socialism. Lies Marx and Communism. never a mention once of Stalinism.

    But never an explanation of that phenomenon in Ireland.

    This comes mainly from the left and from Islam. But to understand what has happened to the left there needs to be an interest. And there simply is no interest in modern day Jews as far as I can judge.

    Clueas to a starting point…the Democratic party is not left, it is totally capitalist party, always was and will be. But the likes of AOC is left. What is she/ where did she come from or out of?

    That is a most difficult question. And the likes of Ted Belman or Zorn are not remotely interested.

    In fact it suits them. That is socialism you see. socialism is bad! QED! discussion over!

    you see Ted Belman is right at the heart of capitalism. he says it to me often. Is proud of it. And capitalism in our world is destroying our world through global warming.

    And that is the crux of Jewish leadership problems and implications.

    there are big implications in that. I sense that there are big implications.

  39. Lower-class Black Americans are not the only people in America who are antisemites. Powerful white men are equally so, even though they express their hatred in slightly more “genteel” fashion.

    New York accuses upstate town of ‘systematic effort’ to bar Hasidic Jews
    State attorney general says move by officials from Chester was a ‘blatantly anti-Semitic’ attempt to keep out Jewish residents

    By JTA7 December 2019, 5:21 am
    home page

    Illustrative: Jewish residents of Monsey, Rockland County, New York state, April 5, 2019. (Johannes Eisele/AFP)
    Illustrative: Jewish residents of Monsey, Rockland County, New York state, April 5, 2019. (Johannes Eisele/AFP)
    The attorney general in New York State has accused an upstate town of discrimination for its attempt to block a real estate development that is partly owned by Hasidic Jews.

    In papers filed Thursday in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Letitia James accused officials from the town of Chester and Orange County of “a concerted, systematic effort” to block Hasidic families from moving to the town.

    “Blocking the construction of homes to prevent a religious group from living in a community is flat out discriminatory,” James said. “This campaign to deny housing to members of the Jewish community is not only a clear violation of our laws, but is antithetical to our basic values and blatantly anti-Semitic. New York has a longstanding commitment to ensure equal housing opportunities for all residents — regardless of race, gender, or religious identity — and we will ensure this commitment is upheld.”

    Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

    With the filing, James is inserting the state into a lawsuit that began in July when developers accused the town of blocking the project because it didn’t want Jews moving there.

    According to the suit, a 117-acre parcel in Chester was approved for residential development under a previous owner. But in 2017, when the property was sold to The Greens at Chester, which is partially owned by Hasidic Jews, the town began imposing restrictions aimed at limiting or even scuttling the project — moves the lawsuit claims violate the federal Fair Housing Act.

    “We remain deeply concerned by the blatant anti-Semitism arising out of Orange County,” Evan Bernstein, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Thursday, according to The Associated Press.

    Local officials deny their actions are driven by anti-Semitic animus.

    “We are not full of bigots, we are not anti-Semites,” Alexander Jamieson, a former town supervisor who is named in the lawsuit, told The New York Times. “This is just about the size of the houses. The other stuff is just smoke and mirrors. It’s just a distraction.