Provocative pro-Palestinian protests outside a synagogue in Michigan are protected by the Constitution's First Amendment, a federal court appeals said Wednesday.

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The court declined to stop the demonstrations or set restrictions in Ann Arbor. The protests have occurred on a weekly basis since 2003, with people holding signs that say "Jewish Power Corrupts," "Stop Funding Israel" and "End the Palestinian Holocaust."

Members of Beth Israel Congregation, including some Holocaust survivors, said the protests have interfered with their Saturday worship and caused emotional distress.

"But the congregants have not alleged that the protesters ever blocked them from using their synagogue or that the protests were even audible from inside the building," Judge Jeffrey Sutton said.

He said a proposed remedy –a 1,000-foot (305-meter) buffer and limits on signs – would likely violate the First Amendment.

"The key obstacle is the robust protections that the First Amendment affords to nonviolent protests on matters of public concern," Sutton said in summarizing the case.

He was joined by Judge David McKeague. Judge Eric Clay agreed with the result but on different grounds.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in support of the activists, saying the protests are entitled to protection even if "offensive, upsetting and distasteful."

"If public officials and courts have discretion to suppress speech they don't like, then none of us truly enjoys the freedom of speech," Dan Korobkin of the ACLU said.

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Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has made the unusual decision not to appoint an adviser for Diaspora affairs, Israel Hayom has learned.

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The Diaspora affairs adviser is tasked with maintaining and bolstering the prime minister's ties with Jewish people overseas and their representatives.

Bennett's decision not to fill the role is particularly surprising given his prioritization of the subject throughout his political career.

In previous governments in which he served, Bennett demanded the Diaspora Affairs portfolio, and his close associate Dvir Kahana until recently served as the ministry's director-general.

Naama Klar, director of the non-profit Reut Group that tackles challenges facing Israel and the Jewish world, said: "Israel's prime minister plays a significant role not only regarding Israel's citizens but vis-à-vis the entire Jewish people. The ties between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora are a strategic issue that has repercussions for national security. Therefore, a senior adviser in the prime minister's sector must be tasked with the subject and be responsible for bringing up-to-date information to the prime minister and the senior echelon on Jewish communities and the robust relationship with them at any given moment."

Klar said the appointment of a Diaspora Affairs minister would not relieve Bennett of the need for a personal adviser in the field, as has been the case in the past.

"The Diaspora Affairs minister has operational responsibility for a variety of commitments and collaborations between the Israeli government and Jewish communities in the Diaspora, but they cannot integrate the importance of the connection between Israel and the Diaspora within the other most serious national security considerations on which the prime minister should formulate their policies. Not to appoint an adviser is to take the Diaspora issue off the prime minister's radar and make it more vulnerable to neglect and deterioration, which will necessarily lead to a blow to Israel's national security," Klar said.

Shira Ruderman, the founder of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which works to bolster ties between Israel and Diaspora Jews, said that while unexpected, "It's unclear whether the fact that they're not appointing an adviser in the field is an indication of the government's intentions on the Diaspora issue. Israel's ties with the Jewish world must be a critical subject that ranks high up in the new government's list of priorities."

She said: "I hope they find effective ways to promote the relationship, for example, by bolstering the role of the Diaspora minister and allocating significant resources."

Bennett's office has yet to comment on the reports.

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A new FBI report on hate crimes has left the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council (MJAC) deeply troubled.

The Hate Crimes Statistics report, released Monday, cited 7,314 hate crime incidents in 2019, up slightly from the 7,120 incidents reported in 2018. Incidents targeting Jews were up 14% compared to last year. While hate crimes against Muslims decreased slightly in 2019, they remain the next largest target of crimes based on religious bias.

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"Muslims and Jews across America remain primary targets of crimes motivated by sheer hatred, but no ethnic or faith group is immune," said MJAC Co-chair Stanley Bergman. "The persistence of and continuing increase in hate crimes demands urgent attention and action."

In response to the alarming statistics, the MJAC is urging Congress to pass the Jabara-Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assaults, and Threats to Equality (NO HATE) Act before the end of the current congressional session.

This legislation is designed to incentivize state and local law enforcement authorities to improve hate crime reporting by making grants available, to be managed through the US Department of Justice. The grants, authorized from existing funds, will provide resources such as law enforcement trainings, the creation of reporting hotlines, increased resources to liaise with affected communities, and public educational forums on hate crimes. The bill also amends the penalties for hate crimes to allow courts to require offenders to undertake educational classes or community service related to the victim's community as a condition of release.

"The measures laid out in the NO HATE Act will significantly improve our understanding of hate crimes and help law enforcement respond more effectively," said MJAC Co-chair Farooq Kathwari. "We applaud the many members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, who have come together in unity to support this important legislation."

MJAC has been advocating for the passage of the NO HATE Act since its bicameral introduction in June 2019. The bill was introduced in the Senate as the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assaults, and Threats to Equality Act by Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and its companion legislation in the House by Representatives Don Beyer (D-VA) and Pete Olson (R-TX). In the House, the NO HATE Act passed with bipartisan support as part of the HEROES Act. MJAC said it hoped to see the NO HATE Act included in a coronavirus response package or passed independently in the Senate.

MJAC is a civil society coalition co-convened by American Jewish Committee (AJC) and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Founded in 2016, MJAC brings together civil society, religious, and business leaders from across the US to advocate for domestic policy issues of common concern.

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"I spent a semester at Brandeis University two decades ago during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur … and I understand how important this time is for your congregation," Adams said at the start of his remarks.

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He told those on the call that "you all are on the front lines" and that "people will heed your advice in ways they won't mine as surgeon general."

Then, Adams began to outline the best ways that rabbinic leaders can ensure their congregants are safe and healthy during High Holiday services amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Adams said that unlike other viruses, including the common cold, people could have COVID-19 and not know it.

"It's important that your congregation understand that it's not just about how you feel and how someone looks, but assuming everyone has the virus, and putting barriers and limiting high-risk activities," he said.

In the context of holiday prayer, such high-risk activities include singing and reciting prayers aloud.

Emphasizing that the safest option for congregations is to be online for the holidays – "I understand the virtual option isn't something you look to do," Adams said, noting as a doctor he needed to say it – the surgeon general said that best option would be told hold outdoor services if possible.

If individuals must be indoors, he said, they need to wear masks at all times, remain at least six feet apart from one another, and separate times between the services to allow a room to air out and for proper cleaning to take place. He also suggested that congregations direct foot traffic with arrows or dots on the floor showing people which way to walk, and where to stand and sit.

Acknowledging that the emotional impact of remaining at home is also a vital concern, particularly for those who are accustomed to being in synagogue on the holiest days of the Jewish year, Adams said that it was important for each religious leader to evaluate things individually.

"There's not a one-size-fits-all" solution, he said. "One congregation may have mostly older congregants or be in a location with only 1% positivity for the virus and another congregation with 10% positivity."

Adams said his family has been worshipping online since the pandemic began, and that they look forward to "the day we can once again attend in person."

"We just have to get through this with minimal harm" to our congregations and communities, he said. "This is not forever."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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They had applied to the Birthright Israel Excel program for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to intern at Israeli offices of top global companies, such as Facebook, Visa, Microsoft, Ernst & Young (EY) and Barclay's.

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And certainly, when it comes to skill-building and contact-forging, and to strengthening tomorrow's business ties between Israel and North America, Excel delivers. After all, the development program has been mentoring Jewish college students and young adults in Israeli firms – nearly 800 of them to date – since 2010. And because the program has a field of 2,000 applicants to choose from, it accepts many of the brightest Jewish American college students who apply.

Livvy Gordon was among them. Over at the offices of venture-capital firm Greenfield Partners, the Georgetown University global business student pulls up a report which she had generated with data that was crucial to the team, to help them decide whether or not to invest in a particular company that had approached them for funding.

"It's been an amazing opportunity to get experience inside the Israeli economy," says Gordon. "I've learned so much during a really short time."

The value goes both ways, says Gordon's mentor Raz Mangel. "Livvy's contributed so much to our sourcing research on these companies. She's been able to pick colleagues' brains, and in a steep learning curve for a college kid got quickly up to speed, saving the rest of the team endless hours of research and compiling."

In addition to new skills, like other Excel fellows over the years, Gordon has also picked up the confidence needed to present her findings and analyses at the team's weekly meetings. (Of the 54, only 44 interned at Israeli businesses; the other 10 were involved in an accelerator for future entrepreneurs).

So, where exactly does the "so much more" enter into it?

The program was designed to create bonds that are as personal as they are professional. For starters, the mentors take a deep interest in their fellows. Gordon, for instance, was a guest at Mangel's wedding this summer.

What's more, each American student is paired with an Israeli peer, and they all share a living space in a Tel Aviv hostel, spending evenings and weekends together at lectures, parties, and tours.

"These are bonds that continue to grow over the years," says Excel executive director Idit Rubin. "Their connection to the Jewish homeland is so strong that when they get home, they'll be ambassadors able to tell everyone they meet about the Israel they know – that the Israel they see in the news isn't necessarily what Israel really is."

'Powerful connections that last'

Excel was born a decade ago when longtime Birthright funders Michael Steinhardt and Lynn Schusterman approached the Birthright team with an idea: We're already bringing thousands of young Jews each year to Israel for 10-day experiences, but what about future Jewish business leaders, their reasoning went. As tomorrow's leaders, they have so much to offer Israel, and it's a connection that needs to be built up, something that could take 10 weeks, not 10 days. Soon, Paul E. Singer of the Singer Foundation joined the group, and today, Rubin reports, Excel also receives support from the Birthright Foundation as well as from the State of Israel.

The idea intrigued Yoram Tietz, who as managing partner of EY, the largest accounting firm in Israel, is in a position to connect the fellows with top mentors from across Israel's business world. "I felt it was time for me to give back and, since time is the scarcest of all resources, I wanted to use mine strengthening the bonds between Israeli and American businesses well into the future. So I told Michael (Steinhardt) I'm in it for at least 20 years; it's going to take that long to see results."

Only it hasn't. Now nearly halfway there, "I never expected we'd flourish the way we have," says Tietz. "It's turned out to be a great blend of professional and personal development – the brightest students and the top companies. The result is powerful connections that last."

One unexpected bonus: Tietz was pleasantly surprised when two summers ago, his son Jonathan told him that he'd signed onto Excel as an Israeli participant. His experience was so positive that he has just joined the Excel board.

In many ways, the heart of the program is the bond forged between Americans and their Israeli peers, who often show their new American friends places in Israel that most tourists never see.

"My peer is like an Israeli version of me," says Andrew Carlins, a Duke University junior who spent the summer helping EY develop a searchable database of hundreds of Israeli startups. "All the work I did, it was only at the end that the value of it came together for me."

Still, he says, "It was satisfying and I learned a lot, but that was not the main point of Excel for me. Mostly, it was amazing getting to know Israelis and how they live, and becoming friends without in any way judging each other."

'A long-term investment'

Adam Pukier, also an EY fellow, was inspired to apply after his cousin had raved about his Excel experience in 2017. "He had the time of his life," says Pukier. "But when I heard how selective it is, I never expected to be accepted."

Pukier is pleased to report that he was wrong. As an engineering major at Toronto's Queens University, Pukier was fascinated by "the interfacing between large multinational companies and small cutting-edge Israeli startups, and how to help the big companies engage the Israeli technology the world needs so badly now."

Excel, he says, "gave me the opportunity to see how big corporations work and get my fingertips into the Israeli startup world. That, plus being able to spend a summer living so closely with Israelis, gives me a deeper, more personal experience of Israel, the dreams and aspirations of the kids here, a new connection to these people and this place."

That connection is why Birthright Israel's vice president of global marketing Noa Bauer calls Excel "a long-term investment."

"We recognized many years ago that when we look into the future, these young students are going to play important roles in their home countries. The fact that they return home as part of a long-distance community with Israelis they have so much in common with and with supportive mentors, is key to a strong future," says Bauer.

So what was the proof of the proverbial pudding? Bauer recently met a 2017 Excel fellow now graduating from college.

"I realize now I only want to work with companies that build Israel," he told her.

Pukier says his view of his future has also changed in these 10 weeks. "Now I know I don't want to jump right into a corporate job immediately," he says. "Having had a chance to work with people doing amazing things right out of school or the army has shown me that I don't have to settle for anything I'm not passionate about. I want to have an impact and add value, and there are a lot more opportunities out there to do that than I ever realized."

To keep the momentum strong, Excel hosts a summit for the 780 former fellows in the United States each fall and promotes networking, grant opportunities and partnerships of varying kinds (at least two marriages have already resulted from the program).

"Excel is a lifelong fellowship," says Rubin. "This summer was only the beginning for them."

"I was already active in Israel advocacy at school," says Gordon. "But now that I have friends here, I'm part of Israel in a new way."

Adds Carlins: "Now I can tell everyone what it's really like in Israel. It's nothing I could have ever learned from a book or in class."

And who knows what these young Jews will decide to do with their future?

"Any time Livvy wants to come back here and work for us," says Mangel, "we'd be happy to have her."

The Adelson family, which has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Taglit-Birthright Israel, owns the company that is the primary ‎shareholder in Israel Hayom.‎

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Despite everything, including the friendship that has survived for decades, I can remember tough questions that I heard one woman ask back in about 1974. Why did the nearby Arab village look the way it did? Why was the quality of life and level of development there so poor, compared to – yes – our community's. What seems obvious to you can look bad to Americans. Today, the quality of life has in a sense been equalized, and at least that little village with its mud huts has grown a lot more than the kibbutz. But that doesn't matter, because a considerable number of the volunteers from the late 1960s and early 1970s are furious with Israel. Back then, they experienced the country for themselves. They saw what a country looked like after a war. Today, they are experiencing Israel via infusions from the left-leaning media.

But the real emotional schism revealed itself to me when I arrived in the US in the late 1970s. Then, the opposite question was raised – what would US Jews do if a change in their fortunes forced them to leave America? Flee? One older woman gave me a clear answer: the first choice would be Vienna, Austria. And if that didn't work out, they would leave for Germany. A current event such as the investigation into attorney Michael Cohen, which has caused all the anti-Semitic stereotypes to rear their heads, has caused a few people to question the future of the Jews in the US. The assimilated Jews are aware of their Jewishness, but Israel is not an option for them.

Some of the Jews we used to know have developed a knee-jerk anti-Israel reaction. All the existential threats to the country don't bother them. They blame the Israeli prime minister for the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The anti-Semitic cartoon in The New York Times reflects not only the reflexive anti-Israeli atmosphere but also the hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of Jewish readers who read The Times like their grandfathers read Psalms. The Times could only have run a cartoon like that if it was sure that American Jewry would accept it, and that some of them might even light was it was offering up.

Abandoning conventions

To understand something about ties between Israel and American Jews, we might start with a key event that took place during World War II, as the murder of millions of European Jews was coming to an end. The battle to save the Jews of Europe took place before Israel was founded, but it was a sign of conflicts and struggles to come, which continue to repeat themselves. In Israel, there are leading Holocaust scholars to whom one mustn't mention the name "Peter Bergson," the pseudonym of Irgun activist Hillel Kook. Kook's activity in American proved that one could be effective in a relatively short time, and there was no need to depend on institutionalized Jewish leadership. Researchers such as Rafael Medoff and David Wyman revealed only a generation ago how apathetic then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt was about Jewish refugees and how little he did about the mass murder itself, which his administration knew plenty about.

In his book "The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945," Wyman exposes the huge moral failure of Roosevelt, the American hero that US Jewry worshipped (and many still do). At the time, the Jews' alliance to the Democratic Party was made stronger. Some of Roosevelt's close advisers were Jews. Stephen Wise, who was known as the leader of American Jews, helped Roosevelt hide the Holocaust from the Americans. If he and his friends didn't shout or cry, why should The New York Times run a headline about the annihilation of millions when it could bury the story at the bottom of an inside page?

Kook embarrassed the Jewish establishment by demanding that the US allocated special aid for the Jews. He was filmed describing the shock he felt when he saw the first report on the Holocaust in The Washington Post. Because of him and his group, the US administration established the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People, and some say that the committee was responsible for rescuing some 200,000 Jews. Kook thought that the Holocaust was a little more important than any awkwardness that might be caused to American Jewish leaders, and enlisted partners such as the great screenwriter Ben Hecht. They wrote provocative full-page ads that ran in The New York Times and horrified the public and organized huge events in which Hollywood stars and theater stars, including Marlon Brando and stars like Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson, who until then had kept their Jewishness a secret.

Kook, the brother of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, founder of Israel's chief rabbinate, arrived from Palestine and created a new, rare kind of leadership. He behaved in a way that was unacceptable by battling for American public opinion and put direct pressure on the administration and on Congress, skirting the established Jewish leadership. Two other leaders that broke convention with American Jewry were Yitzhak Rabin, in his years as ambassador to Washington, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Holocaust changed how leaders of American Jewry did things. One person who appeared as a great leader was Abba Hillel Silver, a Reform rabbi from Cleveland. He was a key figure in forging ties between the leadership of the Jewish population and the former Soviet Union ahead of the UN vote on partition.

The Jewish-American-Israel relationship always reflected international diplomacy. Silver joined forces with Moshe Sharett and Eliahu Epstein (Eilat), who were trying to contact Russia's ambassador to the UN, Andrei Gromyko. He succeeded and they learned that the person pushing to supposedly pro-Zionist line was none other than Josef Stalin himself. But the Russians wanted not only to push the British out of the Middle East by establishing a Jewish state, but they also wanted to influence American Jews to vote for the pro-Soviet Left in the 1948 election. It turns out that two years earlier, in the mid-term election, most American Jews has voted for Republicans to punish the Democrats for Roosevelt's pro-Arab stance. The left-wing candidate for president, who was supported by the communists, was Henry Wallace, a staunch pro-Zionist. Eventually, Harry Truman wavered, and the State Department and the American establishment as a whole threw their entire weight against the establishment of a Jewish state. The Jewish vote, general public opinion, and the position of the USSR caused Truman to go against the defense and foreign policy establishment and the US wound up supporting the establishment of a Jewish state and was the first to recognize it after it was founded on May 14, 1948.

An obviously fateful moment

After Israel was established, a kind of formula for relations with US Jewry was determined when Ben-Gurion struck a deal with Jacob Blaustein, head of the American Jewish Committee. The deal laid out the following guidelines: that Israel wanted US Jewry to continue to exist safely and to flourish; did not see itself as allowed to interfere in its affairs; saw it as an equal partner in caring for persecuted Jews in the world; and did not see it as a Jewish population in distress. This meant that Israel would refrain from activity urging American Jews to make aliyah. American Jews, who numbered 5 or 6 million, were strong and – as a community – wealthy compared to the Jewish state, which in August 1950 was home to a little over a million people and under a policy of austerity. Donations from American Jews had a decisive effect on Israel's economy.

In the 1950s, the US government was alienated from if not actually hostile to Israel, and American Jews did not have easy access to the White House under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The establishment of the state under Truman, as well as McCarthyism, pushed more and more Jews in the direction of the Democrats. The test came when Operation Kadesh started on Oct. 29, 1956. Eisenhower blamed Israel's war against Egypt in the Sinai for eclipsing the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

At the time of Operation Kadesh, Abba Eban was doing double duty as Israel's ambassador in Washington and at the UN. In his autobiography, he writes that the 1956 operation embarrassed and confused American Jews. Abba Hillel Silver thought it was a serious mistake. American Jews worried that the operation, which was vital to Israel's security, threatened their standing in the US and thought it preferable for Israel to do nothing lest the crystal chandeliers shake over the heads of the various US Jewish organizations.

But later on, Abba Eban, one of the greatest orators in the history of the UN, gave a speech that sent a shockwave through American public opinion and brought US Jewry around to Israel's side. After the speech, Ben-Gurion wrote to Eban and told him he himself had had doubts about Kadesh, but Eban's speech had convinced him of its justness. Four months later, when both the Soviet regime and the US administration were warning Israel to withdraw immediately from the Sinai Peninsula, which it had just captured, US Jews were already united behind Israel's demand that is receive something in exchange for a withdrawal.

A similar but bigger test happened in 1967 over the Six-Day War. Israeli-American ties were far from close. There were a lot of questions about President Lyndon Johnson's stance on Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser's shenanigans. In those years, Israel depended on lobbying in the president's close circle. The Arab-Soviet "blockade" of Israel caused public opinion to swing in its direction. Johnson, who was in crisis because of the escalating Vietnam War, was mainly concerned about re-election.

A conflict of interests for the Jews

Everything was mixed up: strategic interests, the Jewish issue, and domestic politics. The closest person to Johnson who was in close contact with Israel was an American Jew named Ed Weinberg. A day before the war started, Johnson sent a warning telegram to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol stressing that Israel must not be responsible for launching a hostile action. Abba Eban read the message to the cabinet at the fateful meeting in which they decided to go to war. Weinberg sent a similar message to Israel's ambassador to the US, Abe Herman: Don't fire the first shot.

But it seems that one of the US ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg, who was particularly close with Johnson, sent his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Rafael, a message saying exactly the opposite: "This is a definitive moment for Israel's existence, the problem is not oil via Eilat or not. If we do no overcome the challenge of Nasser, Israel's international and security standing will collapse, and the Arabs will attack it while they are strong."

Legendary Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir was in the US at the time. He reported on a meeting he held with Jews in Boston immediately before the war. Sapir described them as "miserable and afraid," and said they had sat up together until 1:30 a.m. "They asked, 'What will become of us?'" Sapir later wrote.

When the war actually started, Sapir was in Rio de Janeiro, but the panic was certainly similar to that felt by American Jews. Reports were saying that the Egyptians were already in Israel. "People were sitting and bursting into tears," Sapir said.

"To protect Israel, we'll have to sell our paintings, our horses, and our wives' jewelry, and maybe even our stocks," said Edmond de Rothschild. Menachem Begin heard that and said in a cabinet meeting, "And Baron Rothschild would still have something left."

Professor Michael Walzer describes the feeling on the Jewish Left in his book "Just and Unjust Wars." There was a recognition that the war actually started on May 23, 1967, when the Straits of Tiran were closed. Walzer claimed that Israel was "justifiably afraid."

"There are threats that no nation can live with," he writes. The war was, therefore, a justified pre-emptive strike, whereas the justification for the Arab threat to Israel was based on the assumption that the Jewish state had no right to defend itself because its very existence was illegal.

Always someone to blame

This is the world Israel is still living in – with one difference. Many Jews have suffered a moral collapse, and based on what they read in The Times, they think the Jewish state has no right to defend itself because even if its existence is legal, it is no longer legitimate.

It was Rabin who broke the mold of Israel handling its contact with the US administration via the Jewish establishment, and not only because the Jewish establishment was mostly Democratic and the administration of President Richard Nixon, which came to power in 1969, was Republican. Nixon was the first senior American diplomat to visit Israel after the Six-Day War. Before he was elected president, he formed close ties with the new ambassador, who had been IDF chief of staff in that war. In later years, Rabin would pay a price for his end-run around the Jewish-Democratic establishment.

Rabin was critical of the Democrats' position and praised Nixon, whom American Jews loathed. He launched direct lines of communication with US power brokers, without any need of a lobby. Leading Jews from the Democratic side warned him not to criticize the party's position. He was seen as interfering in US domestic politics, and ahead of the 1972 election openly supported Nixon's re-election bid.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War brought the American conflict of interest in the Middle East to a head. On one hand, there was a material consideration of oil, and on the other, Israel in terms of ideology and in terms of domestic US politics. Nixon, who was accused of being an anti-Semite, took Israel's side, along with Henry Kissinger, who was also not beloved by the Jews.

Before the war erupted, the matter of Soviet Jewry was a hot potato for Israel, the US administration, and US Jewry. The Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 threatened to scupper the détente, with Congress demanding that the USSR not enjoy trade benefits unless it took steps to address human rights and allow its Jews to move to Israel freely. That initiative, which Israel and American Jews backed, threatened the crown jewel of Kissinger and Nixon's international strategy.

A future in question

What is interesting is that the more complicated Israel becomes, it is less understood by American Jewry. On one hand, the Jewish community had been traumatized, mostly when anti-Semites on both the Right and Left accused them of "double loyalty." On the other hand, there were the myths fostered by films like "Exodus," "Ben Hur," and "Cast a Giant Shadow." Jews feared events such as the trial of the Rosenbergs, who were accused of espionage and executed, or the later affair of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard; but there was also the character Ari Ben Canaan, played by the blue-eyed Paul Newman, and Kirk Douglas as the Jewish prince.

American Jews were comfortable with the homogeneous, idealistic image of Israel exemplified by the Jaffa oranges girl, or the red roofs of kibbutz homes. Now that Israel has a much stronger presence diplomatically, economically, and in the media, it's hard for them to accept. Independent policy and even opposition to the American president, such as existed in the time of former US President Barack Obama, has led to a crisis among the Jews. Under Nixon, when Israel butted heads with the administration about aliyah from the Soviet Union, it created no political difficulties for the Jews. They were part of the Democratic opposition. Under Obama, when Netanyahu was unafraid of conflict, the Jews – who were part of the presidential coalition – were in trouble. The prime minister wasn't counting on them as a base of support for his policies against Iran.

Since then, it would seem that a rift has emerged between Israel and important sectors of American Jewry. Some Israeli leaders think that Israel must espouse a strategy of "healing the rift" with US Jewry. Some say that's a mere slogan, because liberal Jews and even some other parts of US Jewry are undergoing a process of starting to identify Israel with powers we did not know in the part: every year, hundreds of young people from abroad volunteer to serve in the IDF, and the number of visitors who arrive with Birthright-Taglit is big enough for hostile groups to try and torpedo the organization's activity.

In the first few years after the Six-Day War, aliyah from North America rose significantly. Between the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, some 5,000 American Jews made aliyah each year (most of whom eventually returned). In the past few years, aliyah from North American has seen a serious uptick and is approaching the peak numbers of the late 1960s-early 1970s. In the 10 years from 2000 to 2010, American aliyah stood at 350-600 per year, whereas last year (2018), some 3,500 American Jews made aliyah. Who can say whether the trend will continue?

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The threat to freedom in the United States is twofold, said Carmon.

On the one hand is the jihadi threat, which manifests in terrorist attacks but is rooted in the ideological incitement of preachers in mosques. On the other hand are white supremacists, neo-Nazis, fascists and others who frequently pose a mortal threat to Jews and people of color. Like the jihadists, the white supremacists also target the LGBTQ community, said Carmon.

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"This deadly two-pronged attack is engendering a situation where dignified and safe Jewish communal life in America is almost impossible," said Carmon.

Monitoring U.S. imams

During the past year-and-a-half, he explained, MEMRI concentrated on monitoring sermons by imams across the United States. The results from a random sample of over 100 imams, he said, were shocking. The sermons were laced with incitement to kill Jews, support for global jihad and hard-core misogyny. A few imams, he said, preached tolerance and coexistence, but they were a small minority.

This replicated the organization's findings in Europe, he added, where a very few called for tolerance and coexistence, and a sizable majority preached anti-Christian and anti-Jewish hate propaganda. Sometimes, he said, the very same preachers whose message in the mosques was incitement, hate and even advocacy for violence were also engaged in interfaith activities.

"Since in Europe not only actions but hate speech is criminalized, the authorities took action against them based on MEMRI's monitoring," he said, but it was not true for US Jewish organizations he tried to warn.

"I took these results to the leadership of several US Jewish organizations to warn about the emerging threat and encourage them to protest in various ways," he said. "I was stunned to realize that the leaders of the Jewish community I spoke with are totally afraid to deal with the challenge in a proactive, comprehensive way."

They fear for their own personal safety, he said, and also fear that openly challenging radical Islamists would expose them to accusations of Islamophobia.

"So while Islamist preachers are free to call for killing Jews, with complete immunity, it is Islamophobic to counter them," he said.

And as if that weren't enough, he added, "I was stunned even more to hear the argument that in order to be heard regarding the jihadist threat we had 'to balance' our exposure of radical Islam by monitoring and exposing the white supremacists and neo-Nazis as well.

"After overcoming my shock at this approach – it was days after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting – we began monitoring this dark world of hatred, too. We were unfamiliar with this phenomenon at the beginning, but we soon realized that the methodology that we used to monitor the jihadis was fully applicable to the study of the white supremacist threat.

"What we discovered was a totally parallel world of incitement to violence, with deep-rooted ideology, with heroes and Red Alert days (such as the "Day of the Rope" on Aug. 1, when 'betrayers of the race' are to be hanged)."

Monitoring white supremacists on social media

Although ideology and actions are inextricably intertwined, "Americans generally imagine that a wall separates the two," said Carmon, adding that "Europe, which experienced the World War II, knows better and criminalizes Nazi, racist, xenophobic speech, as well as Holocaust denial."

"Within 10 days," he said, "we exposed specific threats to kill a Jewish journalist working for Buzzfeed and a candidate for the Seattle municipal council. We also found a white supremacist taking covert photos of Orthodox Jews in supermarkets in the hope, as he posted online, of 'wiping the blood from the blade of his ax.'"

"We also found macabre intersectionality when the openly anti-Semitic David Duke praised Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), recognizing their kindred anti-Semitism," said Carmon.

Carmon rejects the term "lone wolf" both for jihadists and white supremacists. Like wolves in nature, he said, terrorists, whether of the jihadist or white-supremacist varieties, live and work in packs – online packs in the terrorists' case.

"There are major platforms catering to white supremacists, such as GAB, where the Pittsburgh shooter was active, and 8Chan, which pretends to be a regular site but in reality is a full-blown racist site inciting violence," said Carmon.

"Lately, [8Chan users] identified MEMRI as a threat and doxed us [revealed private or identifying information] in an attempt to intimidate our personnel. Little do they understand – this only encourages us to redouble our efforts."

"In a major report that MEMRI published two months ago when we began this project," said Carmon, "we identified 28 major white supremacist platforms and eight individuals. Unfortunately, this is merely the tip of the iceberg."

According to a report by The New York Times in November last year, US law enforcement was unprepared for the threat coming from white supremacists. According to Carmon, this is one of the areas where he feels MEMRI has a role to play.

"We see our mission as providing [US law enforcement agencies] with research assistance on both the jihadi and white supremacist fronts," said Carmon, through "following social media professionally."

Are social-media companies finally taking action?

Since the New Zealand mosque shootings in March, said Carmon, several Western countries and social-media companies have been exploring new ways to purge the web of incitement. However, he said, "all of this should have been done years ago, and not only after blood was spilled and lives lost."

Initially, he said, the social-media companies vigorously resisted efforts to crack down on incitement.

"All the social-media companies previously marshaled a series of false argument to say that it couldn't be done –and suddenly, everything is possible," he said.

Many people have never heard of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, said Carmon, which under Section 230 provides immunity for social-media companies. But now, he said, that blanket immunity is under threat.

"Only last year was this legal abomination partially breached, in the form of the Fighting Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). All other criminal content remained for the Internet companies to exploit with impunity and immunity," he said.

The Internet companies fought FOSTA to preserve their right to profit from pornography and pedophilia, said Carmon. They are content, he said, "to reap a bonanza from ad revenues on Holocaust denial, apologetics for Hitler, beheadings, racial incitement and jihad recruitment."

"For years, the Internet companies hid behind the ACLU and other useful idiots who actually bought the story that the Internet companies' immunity was designed to protect dissidents, not corporate dividends. However, more traffic online translates into larger advertising revenue for companies," said Carmon.

Governments and legislatures are beginning to lose their infatuation with the Internet companies, he said, but some of the old reverence remains.

"When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently met with French President Emmanuel Macron, it seemed that the president of the Sovereign Republic of Facebook was addressing his colleague, the president of la République Française, as an equal," noted Carmon.

Instead of going to the root of the problem and removing the media companies' immunity, "Macron settled for a formula under which French regulators would be free to enter Facebook's corporate inner sanctum in Dublin and Silicon Valley and France would receive a tip of $5 billion a year. The French president fails to realize that Facebook is only making him an accomplice to all the criminal content," accused Carmon.

The only effective policy, he concluded, is to remove the Internet companies' immunity shield, leveling the playing field with print and broadcast media.

This article is reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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