Posted on April 20, 2024 by John Hinderaker in Anti-Semitism, United Kingdom

Is It a Crime To Be Openly Jewish?

Ever since October 7, mobs of Muslims have taken over much of central London for kill-the-Jews rallies. The effect has been to make being Jewish in London increasingly dangerous. Things came to a head last Saturday when a group of Jews leaving a synagogue bumped into the Muslims’ weekly protest. One of that group, Gideon Falter, describes what happened:

It was early afternoon, in central London, and I was with five others, some of us wearing a kippah, or skullcap.

At Aldwych, we came across the pro-Palestine protest and we started to cross the road as the front of the march got to us. Suddenly I felt hands on me. I looked around to see a police officer who was shoving me onto the pavement.

He said: “You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march. I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.” The march came towards us and after a few minutes the crowd got thicker, people stopping and shouting abuse at us: “Disgusting”, “lock them up”, “Nazis”, “scum”.

Videos of the incident went viral:


Falter picks up the story:

By the actions of the Metropolitan Police, it’s not just that central London is a “no-go zone” for Jews, as has been said previously, but a police-enforced Jew-free zone.

Eventually the officers walked us across the road so that we could get down a side street. We were separated and as I waited to see where the rest of the group was, a protester stood right next to me and a police officer and said: “I’m not afraid of your effing people. Wherever you go, I’m going to monitor and record your movements, not because I support you, but because I’m against you.”

Finally our group was reunited and we left, followed for about half a mile by police officers checking that we did not return.

What does it mean if it is perilous to be “openly Jewish” in central London?

Someone said to me recently, is it really the end of the world if Jews just have to stay out of central London for a few months on weekends? Yes. It is the end of a world that has existed since the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, when British Jews and their allies saw off the British Union of Fascists, and ever since we have been able to live and thrive as equals in this city.

If we just accept that we are no longer welcome on the streets of London, it is the end of that world.

Initially, the Metropolitan Police released this statement:

That statement, more self-justification than apology, drew more criticism, resulting in this second effort:


The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism has responded to this controversy by planning a march on April 27, the date of the next scheduled kill-the-Jews protest.

Enough is enough. It is time for a major change.

On Saturday 27th April — the next anti-Israel march — we are asking you, Jewish or not, to stand up for the tolerance and decency of which this country is so rightly proud, simply by going for a walk.

Click “Show More” for the full message:


I hope millions of people show up. Stand up against bigotry. Take back the city. Take back the Western world.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Hollywood

Bill Maher on Hollywood Pedophilia

So I’m just going to come right out and say it: in the privacy of the voting booth in November, Bill Maher is going to vote for Trump. The only question is whether he will admit it directly, or continue, between rote Trump denunciations, to provide strong hints week after week, like yesterday’s rant about pedophilia in Hollywood. Along the way he says, “Governor DeSantis was right” about Disney.

C’mon in Bill, the water’s fine. (The usual crude language warning applies.)

Posted on by Steven Hayward in Podcasts

Podcast: The 2WHH, on ‘Will It Get Worse Before It Gets Worse?’

This week’s ad-free episode is probably better thought of as a Two Whisky Happy Hour, because John Yoo is away on a lecture- and Philly-cheesesteak-procurement tour back east, and Lucretia is also out of action this weekend, too, though she appears in this episode by proxy, so to speak. So two whiskies it is.

Last weekend, Lucretia and I offered a keynote duo-presentation for Ammo Grrrll’s annual CommenterCon conference in Phoenix, which is an annual gathering of Ammo Grrrll’s best friends and devoted fans from around the country. My theme was “Will it get worse before it gets worse?”, and Lucretia offered some thoughts on the future of free speech.

We had some technical difficulties with our sound recording devices, so the recording has a sudden and noticeable quality shift right in the middle, and you can’t always make out the audience questions perfectly, but we think listeners will still enjoy most of it.

As always, listen here, or from wherever you source your favorite podcasts.

 

Posted on by Lloyd Billingsley in Music

Come and Get these (Motown) Memories

As Scott notes, “You Beat Me to the Punch,” performed by Mary Wells, was written by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Ronny White. There’s a back story here fans should know.

“There was a guy who lived in Detroit and had a group called the Diablos,” Smokey recalled. “His name was Nolan Strong. They were my favorite vocalists at that time.” Strong was with Fortune Records and his “Mind Over Matter” should have been a national hit. You can hear Strong’s influence on the Miracles’ 1960 hit “Shop Around,” and “Who’s Lovin You,” on the flip side. As it happens, Nolan was a cousin of Barrett Strong, whose 1959 hit “Money” helped Berry Gordy establish the Motown label.

Gordy signed the Four Tops, who scored hits such as “Baby I Need Your Lovin” and “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” Not as well-known is “Ask the Lonely,” which might have been their best, with Levi Stubbs in great form. No studio tricks, just pure talent, and Detroit was a good place for it. In the 1950s the city was booming and the schools offered great music programs. That comes through in the polished arrangements on the Motown hits. Singers honed their skills in churches such as New Bethel Baptist, pastored by the Rev. C.L. Franklin, Aretha Franklin’s father. Check out Aretha on “Amazing Grace,” back in 1972.

Berry Gordy also signed Martha Reeves, Annette Beard and Rosalind Ashford, performing as Martha and the Vandellas. The name is a contraction of Detroit’s Van Dyke street and Della Reese, Martha’s favorite singer. Check out Della on “Don’t You Know,” from 1959. Martha’s first hit was the 1963 “Come and Get These Memories,” and like the Vandellas I “can’t forget the motor city.”

In the early 1950s our family lived on Clements Street, and we remained in the area long after. So I knew about “Fingertips,” the first hit for “Little Stevie Wonder.” I knew that “Heavy Music” was a local hit for Bob Seger and the Last Heard. I was a big fan of Mary Wells’ hit, “The One Who Really Loves You,” written by the great Smokey Robinson.

In 2016 the Library of Congress awarded Smokey the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Check out JoJo’s performance of “Who’s Lovin You” at the event. Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy sure liked it.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Anti-Semitism, Hamas, Higher education

Mob rule at Columbia

It looks like the mob has taken control of Columbia University, SA style. The Columbia Spectator reports on the suspensions issued for for participation in Wednesday’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” One of Ilhan Omar’s daughters (Isra Hirsi) is among the suspended students. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree.

The Spectator quotes Columbia undergrad Maryam Alwan, another one of the suspended students. Alwan told the Spectator that she received a letter informing her of her interim suspension from the Center for Student Success and Intervention [!]. “I think all of these administrators need to get a grip and listen to their students and watch the news and see how many people have been killed,” Alwan told the Spectator. (More wisdom à la Alwan in this Spectator column.)

Who are these people? Four New York Post reporters look into their background in “Columbia anti-Israel protest arrests include Letitia James intern, UPS exec’s daughter who killed elderly couple in crash as a teen.” The Post reporters identify several rotten apples.

The Columbia “protests” and “protesters” do not support “Palestinians.” They support Hamas and other genocidal maniacs. They are subjecting Jewish students and teachers to something like a reign of terror. The Washington Free Beacon’s Meghan Blonder reports that “Columbia Students Call on President Shafik To Restore Order on Campus,” and it’s not because their feelings have been wounded. It’s because they are unsafe.

Take the case of Arab-Israeli journalist Yoseph Haddad. He was assaulted at Columbia as he thought he was about to give a lecture on campus. The Free Beacon’s Collin Anderson covers that story here (including video of the assault on Haddad). Haddad’s speech was canceled. “Instead of a lecture, I went to file a police complaint,” he noted. In the tweet below he also commented on the misrepresentation of his story by Reuters. By the way, he understands the Columbia mob perfectly (“terror supporters”). No euphemisms for him.

Columbia student Jonas Du is editor of the monthly Sundial (mission statement here). The editorial tilt of Sundial looks to me like the Spectator’s, only served on a monthly rather than a daily basis. In its April 18 interview with Cornel West on campus, the Sundial interviewer is in awe of West and his take on Israel’s resistance to Hamas’s work toward the final solution. Du, however, seeks to document the ugly scene on campus, as in the tweet below.

The “protester” speaks of repetition. It continued last night. One of the commenters on the the lady in the tweeted video below translates her chant into English: “We want freedom in Palestine. We will fight for freedom.” He identifies her language as Urdu. Diversity!

Columbia’s carefully selected inmates are running this highly selective asylum. Columbia’s Jewish alumni group has asked the university to wrest control from the mob. They write: “It is clear to us that Columbia is now under mob rule.” You have to think they have a point.

Posted on by Steven Hayward in The Week In Pictures

The Week in Pictures: Uncle Bosey Edition

This is the week we learned at long last about Joe Biden’s forgotten uncle “Bosey,” who secretly received the congressional medal of honor for single-handledly subduing an entire tribe of New Guinea cannibals before single-handedly defeating the Japanese at Hiroshima, while rescuing Corn Pop’s eventual father while he was at it. (Apparently “don’t” wasn’t a word in his vocabulary.) What other Ripley’s-worthy family secrets is Joe from Scranton withholding from us?

Headlines of the week:

 

And finally. . .

Posted on April 19, 2024 by Steven Hayward in Announcements, Environment

Join Me Monday for Earth Day!

Next Monday, April 22, is Earth Day. Again. But on Monday I’ll be “returning to the scene of the crime,” in a manner of speaking, to revisit the annual Earth Day project I carried on for nearly 20 years starting way back in 1994: the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators.

Back when I started doing that annual report, The Economist magazine suggested that claiming the environment is a cause for optimism is “beyond the pale of respectable discourse.” So naturally I pointed out just how most environmental conditions in the U.S. were rapidly improving—but the media and certainly doom-and-gloom environmental groups would never tell you this.

But much has changed since then, and I think the hinge decade was the aughts, and now there are a large number of serious thinkers who note environmental improvement in the U.S. and increasing the rest of the world too, and it’s not just odd contrarians like me, Julian Simon, or Ben Wattenberg. The case for environmental optimism is going mainstream, with one conspicuous exception that everyone knows: c—— c—–.

So on Monday morning at 10 am eastern time, the American Enterprise Institute is hosting me and Roger Pielke Jr. to review this story, and you can watch online if you register ahead of time. Or if you are busy working you’ll be able to take it in on tape delay. Sign up at the link.