Tag Archives: anti-Semitism

Crackpot Targets Chevy Chase Home with Anti-Semitic Flyers

A Jewish family in the Town of Chevy Chase was targeted with anti-Semitic flyers. Though I’ve obtained a readable copy, I thought I’d avoid posting it in full. It contains a wide range of historic and current libels and smears against the Jewish People:

“All Christians, including the best of them, are to be killed” — The Talmud Unmasked

Israel Poison Flu Shots: insider blows the whistle

The Sovereign Grand Jury unanimously found Talmudic Jews currently control all U.S. Courts and such Courts constantly cheat Non-Jews.

Of course, the flyer recycles accusations that all leading Bolsheviks were Jewish and responsible for mass murder. Additionally, the writer believes that Jews are responsible for all recent hurricanes, including Harvey, and had secret hiding places. The flyer demands that “Congress shall declare war on the Jews” in order to “seize and prepare caves for the people.”

The writer also falsely casts a negative quote from George Washington about currency speculators as being about Jews. Here is what Washington really said about Jewish Americans in response to a goodwill address from a synagogue:

The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens.

May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.

Beyond its content, the general design of the flyer indicates someone who is deranged and reminds me of some of the very strange mail I opened when I worked as an intern on Capitol Hill many years ago that all went into a special filing cabinet.

The Town Manager of the Town of Chevy Chase has been in contact with Montgomery County Police about this issue. Councilmember Joel Rubin also reached out to the Anti-Defamation League, which has been in touch with the affected household. As Joel explained in an email to neighbors:

If there’s any decent news from this incident, it’s that the ADL believes that there is one specific individual who is spreading these fliers throughout the DC region. They know who he is and are monitoring his actions closely, including working with the police on it. Apparently this hater has been taking such actions for years and is acting alone.

In terms of next steps, I’m in touch with the ADL to see if there’s more that we can do to be vigilant against this – and any – type of hate crime in our town. They asked that we share any additional incidents with them, and are also open to engaging the community further.

I have experienced vanishingly little anti-Semitism in my lifetime and most of it outside the U.S. A shame that the current political environment has given new agency to American purveyors of hate of all sorts. But is now less surprising even if no less un-American than when white nationalist neo-Nazis held a meeting in Friendship Heights to celebrate Trump’s election.

At the same time, I would not want to overly empower such individuals by leaping from this incident to a belief that Montgomery County has been overrun by anti-Semites. Though one should take such incidents seriously, it’s a mistake to generalize from the actions of an individual or small group of idiots.

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Kramer Calls BDS Movement Anti-Semitic

Last week, several testified at the Montgomery Legislative Priorities Hearing against legislation that would prevent businesses that support the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement against Israel from doing business with the State of Maryland.

I asked Del. Ben Kramer (D-19) for this thoughts on the hearing and the BDS  movement, as he vocally opposed their agenda at the hearing. Here is his response:

The BDS movement is unequivocally a propaganda tool being utilized by Israel’s enemies to do what they haven’t been able to do militarily, defeat Israel. The goal of the BDS movement is to force a collapse of the Israeli economy, and in doing so, force Israel to withdraw from the small area of land, that Israel has not returned to its Arab neighbors, captured when the Arab nations (yet again) attacked Israel in 1967.

To their credit, Israel’s enemies have done a phenomenal job of rewriting Middle East history to cast Israel as the aggressor in its dealings with the Arab world.

Quickly being forgotten is the fact that the Arab nations have repeatedly unified (a feat in and of itself, because when they are not focused on efforts to rid the Middle East of Jews, they are often caught up in sectarian violence against one another) and launched wars against Israel for decades.

In defending itself, in 1967, Israel captured considerable Arab territory.

However, in a pursuit for peace, Israel has returned 94% of the captured lands to the Arab nations, which attacked Israel.

My question to the BDS supporters, at the hearing, was to name another occasion in the history of the world when a nation that was repeatedly attacked by its neighboring countries, returned the land captured while defending itself, in an effort to achieve peace and stop further military aggression and war.

Additionally, I discussed the egregious human rights violations that are rife throughout the Arab world. More particularly, I quoted the UN Human Rights Chief, Navi Pillay, who recently offered the following: “Across the Arab world, people continue to struggle for their fundamental civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights. The roots of those struggles lie in social injustice, marginalization, and lack of human rights protections.”  He then added: “Unfortunately, intolerance, marginalization, impunity, sectarianism and violence remain significant challenges.”

I further discussed the violent treatment of women, gays and lesbians in the West Bank and Gaza, which is a routine topic of human rights organizations, and that such treatment is not only condoned, but encouraged by the Fatah led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. Furthermore, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas arrest, jail, torture and execute (if suspected of collaborating with Israel) those who dare to openly challenge their governmental authority.

Therefore, my question of the BDS supporters was to identify which of the myriad of Arab countries, with their laundry lists of human rights violations, were they pursuing boycotts, divestment and sanctions against.

The answer was zero, none, nothing . . . not one.

Evidently, the xenophobic Palestinian governmental authorities in the West Bank and Gaza, with their extremist ideologies that call for the relentless pursuit of the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews in the Middle East, are quite acceptable to those who support the BDS movement.

Apparently, honor killings of wives, daughters and sisters and the treatment of women as chattel, along with intolerance and violence toward the gay and lesbian citizens of Palestinian controlled lands, is of little interest to the ..progressive.. thinkers of pro-BDS.

I then questioned the BDS supporters as to which of the many nations in the world, dominated by despots and dictators, with unspeakable crimes against their own people and horrific human rights violations, were they pursuing a boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against.

Once again, the response was a resounding. . . NONE.

The only nation on this planet that they are trying to bring to financial ruin is the only democratic nation in the region and ..coincidentally.. the only nation on our planet with a majority population of, yes . . . you guessed it . . . Jewsl

And then they have the shameful nerve to be indignant that their actions are being construed, by some, as being rooted in anti-Semitism. Evidently, human rights don’t apply to the right of Jews, in the Middle East, to live in peace.

The glaring hypocrisy of the BDS movement is simply blinding. And a group with the name Jew in the title, that supports the BDS movement against Israel, does not make the movement any less hypocritical.

No one says, not even the Israeli people, that Israel is perfection. Yes, just like with all democratic nations there is room for improvement. However, amongst all of the nations in the region, Israel is the only one where all citizens, including the Arab ones, are free to express their sentiments. Either good, bad or that which is ugly, all are welcome to express their thoughts about Israeli society and the democratically elected officials who govern it.

In fact, just two years ago, the Valedictorian at the most prestigious medical school in Israel was a Muslim Arab woman. This woman would never have had the opportunity to achieve such an accomplishment in the majority of the countries surrounding Israel and who are sworn to Israel’s destruction. Israel is a nation that fully includes women, minorities, Muslims, Christians and the LGBT community at the highest levels of academia, government, industry and business.

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