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On September 5th the Jewish Holiday Rosh Hashana starts the Jewish New Year. It’s the time of the year when we make ourselves into brand new people for the upcoming year and decide where we really want to go with our lives. In the same spirit, organizations once in a while renew their vision and strategy to stay relevant in an ever-changing world. For a decade or so, antisemitism in America has changed. It no…

Much of the criticism of Israel we hear these days from activists, media, politicians, colleagues, friends and family is antisemitic. It often crosses the line that was clearly defined by the international community: the 3 D’s. As soon as the criticism Demonizes Israel, or measures it with a Double standard, or Delegitimizes its existence, it is considered Jew hatred. Grotesque accusations of ‘Genocide’, ‘Ethnic cleansing’, ‘Apartheid’, and ‘Child murder’ are examples of Demonization. Condemning Israel…

Maybe “Never Again” has just become a slogan, meaningless and powerless. Something that we can mouth to make us feel good, to feel like we are fighting evil and preventing evil. Like the hash tag, Me Too, or the displaying the French flag on one’s social media page after yet another terror attack in France. It feels good to virtue signal. Or at least it does until it becomes too difficult to say anything. Until…

On May 8, 1945, men and women rushed to the streets of New York, London and Moscow to hug and kiss and dance. Germany had just surrendered. The war against Nazi Germany was over. The killing had stopped. A great evil ended. Yet many had mixed feelings of joy and grief. More than 100,000 US soldiers had given their lives and almost another 450,000 got wounded. 15-20 million Europeans were killed. May 8 is still…

From March 15-17, the Netherlands held national elections. The Netherlands has a crowded multiparty system: 17 parties got elected into the House of Representatives. The center-Right party VVD and the center-Left party D’66 ended as the two biggest parties. These parties want Holland to stay in the EU and are for climate management. The two parties together still don’t hold a majority. At the Right side of the aisle are the populist parties: Geert Wilders’…

After a successful launch in the US in 2019, our documentary about antisemitism ‘Never Again Is Now’ was released worldwide on YouTube recently. https://youtu.be/BZWnlshOXWs . We wanted to advertise the film on YouTube. Our ad consisted of a brief text explaining that ‘Never Again Is Now’ is about the Holocaust and about rising antisemitism today. The ad was rejected by the YouTube algorithm. It didn’t explain why. Only after we removed the words ‘Holocaust’ and…

I was introduced last February to a 24-year-old lesbian woman in Egypt, I call her Dolly for security purposes. She needed support because of the severe oppression and persecution of LGBTs in Egypt were taking a toll on her. She has had two female lovers in her life. Both were married off when the parents found out they were in a same-sex relationship. Dolly herself was cut off by her family and maligned on social…

America has been shaken to its core over the past months, first with the Covid pandemic and then the riots and protests in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  Where these protests have led to rioting and mayhem, a disturbing current of anti-Semitism has followed in the form of anti-Semitic rhetoric and slogans chanted by protestors, graffiti, and vandalism.  It should come as no surprise that the recent Black Lives Matter…

Every year, a week after Passover, Jewish communities and other individuals around the world observe Yom Hashoah, a day of remembrance of the Holocaust. In Israel there is a state ceremony at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial museum, where the President and the Prime-Minister speak and the flag is lowered to half-mast. Around the world Jewish communities gather to light six candles for the 6 million Jews who perished, read their names, and recite prayers…

When I saw the picture of the leaders of the Muslim World League visiting Auschwitz last Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, it shocked me as much as when Yasser Arafat visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam in 1998. The Muslim World League, based in Mecca, has been Saudi Arabia’s main exporter of radicalism and terrorism throughout the world in the past decades. This organization, that is close to the…