30 sept 2017
Official statement from the BNC:
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society that leads the global BDS movement, strongly condemns the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decision to award millions of dollars in contracts to fulfill President Donald Trump’s ominous promise to expand the wall at the Mexico/U.S. border.
In particular, the latest contracts awarded by the Trump administration to Israeli military contractors commissioned to expand the wall at the United States’ southern border should be of great concern to all people concerned with human rights, whether in the United States, Palestine or beyond.
Israel Aerospace Industries subsidiary, Elta North America, has been awarded a contract worth up to $500,000 to build prototypes for the wall on the Mexico/U.S. border, while the U.S. subsidiary of the Israeli security and surveillance company Elbit Systems has received its third contract to build the U.S. border wall and to militarize the border area.
In 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Elbit Systems a $145 million contract to erect and maintain surveillance towers along the Arizona/Sonora (Mexico) border. Already in 2006, Elbit had been subcontracted by Boeing to provide cameras and radar systems for the DHS’s Strategic Border Initiative. Earlier this month, Elbit announced a contract to deliver even more radar and surveillance towers to militarize the Mexico-US border area, boasting it offers “field proven architecture” tested on Palestinians.
Other Israeli companies such as Magal Security Systems are eagerly anticipating the opportunity to profit from the expansion of the U.S./Mexico border wall.
Israeli military and technology companies are exporting their expertise, acquired by illegally constructing Israel’s apartheid wall on occupied Palestinian land, and are now keen to also profit from repressing migrants at the U.S. border. By awarding contracts to these Israeli corporations and their subsidiaries, DHS is continuing a long history of the U.S. and Israel exchanging the worst repressive practices.
Palestinians have long endured Israel’s apartheid wall and illegal settlements built on our stolen land. So when we see images of the already-walled portions of the Mexico/U.S. border, we cannot help but see the striking similarity to Israel’s illegal wall, built to restrict Palestinian freedom of movement and to effectively annex 46% of the West Bank when completed, including its most fertile and water-rich parts.
When we Palestinians see how the escalating militarization of the Mexico/U.S. border obstructs migrants’ right to freedom of movement, we recall how Israel’s intense militarization of the occupied West Bank also restricts Palestinian freedom of movement. Israel’s military oppression manifests itself in the hundreds of humiliating checkpoints erected on Palestinian land illegally occupied for more than 50 years, and in the brutal 10-year siege of the Gaza Strip, where Israel uses walls and the full force of its military to create what many have called “the world’s largest open air prison” to trap and suffocate 2 million Palestinians.
When we Palestinians see the indigenous Tohono O’odham threatened with displacement from their ancestral land on both sides of the U.S. southern border, we cannot but stand in solidarity with them and deeply empathize with their familiar plight. The majority of the indigenous Palestinians, after all, are still refugees who Israel has for seven decades barred from returning to their ancestral homes and lands.
While we recognize that the Trump administration is not unique in U.S. history in attacking migrant rights or in enabling and supporting Israeli violations of human rights, the entrenchment of these policies under the current far-right U.S. government, combined with the rise in overt xenophobia and racism, are creating an even greater human rights crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society that leads the global BDS movement, strongly condemns the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decision to award millions of dollars in contracts to fulfill President Donald Trump’s ominous promise to expand the wall at the Mexico/U.S. border.
In particular, the latest contracts awarded by the Trump administration to Israeli military contractors commissioned to expand the wall at the United States’ southern border should be of great concern to all people concerned with human rights, whether in the United States, Palestine or beyond.
Israel Aerospace Industries subsidiary, Elta North America, has been awarded a contract worth up to $500,000 to build prototypes for the wall on the Mexico/U.S. border, while the U.S. subsidiary of the Israeli security and surveillance company Elbit Systems has received its third contract to build the U.S. border wall and to militarize the border area.
In 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Elbit Systems a $145 million contract to erect and maintain surveillance towers along the Arizona/Sonora (Mexico) border. Already in 2006, Elbit had been subcontracted by Boeing to provide cameras and radar systems for the DHS’s Strategic Border Initiative. Earlier this month, Elbit announced a contract to deliver even more radar and surveillance towers to militarize the Mexico-US border area, boasting it offers “field proven architecture” tested on Palestinians.
Other Israeli companies such as Magal Security Systems are eagerly anticipating the opportunity to profit from the expansion of the U.S./Mexico border wall.
Israeli military and technology companies are exporting their expertise, acquired by illegally constructing Israel’s apartheid wall on occupied Palestinian land, and are now keen to also profit from repressing migrants at the U.S. border. By awarding contracts to these Israeli corporations and their subsidiaries, DHS is continuing a long history of the U.S. and Israel exchanging the worst repressive practices.
Palestinians have long endured Israel’s apartheid wall and illegal settlements built on our stolen land. So when we see images of the already-walled portions of the Mexico/U.S. border, we cannot help but see the striking similarity to Israel’s illegal wall, built to restrict Palestinian freedom of movement and to effectively annex 46% of the West Bank when completed, including its most fertile and water-rich parts.
When we Palestinians see how the escalating militarization of the Mexico/U.S. border obstructs migrants’ right to freedom of movement, we recall how Israel’s intense militarization of the occupied West Bank also restricts Palestinian freedom of movement. Israel’s military oppression manifests itself in the hundreds of humiliating checkpoints erected on Palestinian land illegally occupied for more than 50 years, and in the brutal 10-year siege of the Gaza Strip, where Israel uses walls and the full force of its military to create what many have called “the world’s largest open air prison” to trap and suffocate 2 million Palestinians.
When we Palestinians see the indigenous Tohono O’odham threatened with displacement from their ancestral land on both sides of the U.S. southern border, we cannot but stand in solidarity with them and deeply empathize with their familiar plight. The majority of the indigenous Palestinians, after all, are still refugees who Israel has for seven decades barred from returning to their ancestral homes and lands.
While we recognize that the Trump administration is not unique in U.S. history in attacking migrant rights or in enabling and supporting Israeli violations of human rights, the entrenchment of these policies under the current far-right U.S. government, combined with the rise in overt xenophobia and racism, are creating an even greater human rights crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The expanding far-right alliance between the Trump and Netanyahu administrations is leading to disturbing exchanges, including Netanyahu’s infamous January 28, 2017 tweet supporting the expansion of the Mexico/U.S. border wall.
Netanyahu tweeted, “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.” This is only one example of how Israel (with support from the United States) has been central to promoting this new global era of walls. From India, to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Western Sahara and Europe, the number of walls designed to forcibly define and seal borders has nearly tripled over the last 20 years.
The BNC will continue to work with our partners in the United States, Mexico and around the world to ensure stronger ties of mutual solidarity between our struggle for justice in Palestine and the struggle for justice along the Mexico/U.S. border.
In particular we call on our partners to:
The BDS movement rejects all forms of racism and racial discrimination, including the racism and xenophobia driving the U.S. militarization of this Mexico/US border.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society. It leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter @BDSmovement.
Netanyahu tweeted, “President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.” This is only one example of how Israel (with support from the United States) has been central to promoting this new global era of walls. From India, to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Western Sahara and Europe, the number of walls designed to forcibly define and seal borders has nearly tripled over the last 20 years.
The BNC will continue to work with our partners in the United States, Mexico and around the world to ensure stronger ties of mutual solidarity between our struggle for justice in Palestine and the struggle for justice along the Mexico/U.S. border.
In particular we call on our partners to:
- Intensify BDS campaigns targeting Israeli companies profiting from contracts militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border, including Elbit Systems, Elta North America and its mother company Israeli Aerospace Industries.
- Seek and join organizations fighting to stop the Trump administration’s border wall expansion before it starts.
- Intensify campaigns for a military embargo on Israel. Root these in a vision that seeks to end the creation and exchange of expertise and technology that aids repression, exclusion, racial discrimination and war across the globe.
- Join organizations in Palestine, Mexico, the United States and beyond in organizing for a Global Day of Action for a World Without Walls this November 9, 2017.
The BDS movement rejects all forms of racism and racial discrimination, including the racism and xenophobia driving the U.S. militarization of this Mexico/US border.
The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society. It leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter @BDSmovement.
28 sept 2017
The Hebrew channel Kan said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has initiated a plan with U.S. President Donald Trump along with other members in the Congress to pressure Palestinians in order to halt their unilateral steps at the international arena.
The Hebrew channel revealed on Thursday that Israel has been working with the cooperation of American Congress members on coming up with a plan to put an end to the Palestinians' activities at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as to close the the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington.
“Israel will not let continuous Palestinian diplomatic steps against Israel go without a response”, Netanyahu said on Wednesday evening in reaction to Interpol’s decision earlier in the day to admit the Palestinians as a member state.
Netanyahu’s comment came at a meeting in his office with US envoy Jason Greenblatt, US Ambassador David Friedman, and Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer.
Netanyahu said at the meeting, "The actions of the Palestinian leadership are in violation of previous agreements with Israel and severely damage the chances of achieving peace".
The Hebrew channel revealed on Thursday that Israel has been working with the cooperation of American Congress members on coming up with a plan to put an end to the Palestinians' activities at the International Criminal Court (ICC) as well as to close the the office of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Washington.
“Israel will not let continuous Palestinian diplomatic steps against Israel go without a response”, Netanyahu said on Wednesday evening in reaction to Interpol’s decision earlier in the day to admit the Palestinians as a member state.
Netanyahu’s comment came at a meeting in his office with US envoy Jason Greenblatt, US Ambassador David Friedman, and Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer.
Netanyahu said at the meeting, "The actions of the Palestinian leadership are in violation of previous agreements with Israel and severely damage the chances of achieving peace".
23 sept 2017
It was a spectacle nobody in this sleepy New Jersey town would forget.
Early one Monday morning, police and FBI agents in bulletproof vests bounded up the steps of suburban townhouses and split levels, threatening to break down the doors, hauling out in handcuffs husbands and wives in the distinctive clothing of ultra-Orthodox Jews. One was a prominent rabbi and head of a synagogue.
It was the dramatic kickoff of a series of well-publicized raids that since late June have netted 26 suspects on charges of stealing $2 million in government benefits. Prosecutors say that the suspects understated their income to get free healthcare, food stamps, rental subsidies and other benefits.
All of those arrested — 13 men and 13 women — were ultra-Orthodox Jews. The charges have tapped into a well of festering hostility toward an insular and eccentric minority.
Once a backwater at the edge of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, Lakewood is now home to one of the largest concentrations of ultra-Orthodox Jews outside of Israel. They are a fast-growing population with a high birthrate; the population of Lakewood has exploded from 45,000 in 1990 to more than 100,000 today. Many of the newcomers are from large families priced out of Brooklyn by gentrification.
Early one Monday morning, police and FBI agents in bulletproof vests bounded up the steps of suburban townhouses and split levels, threatening to break down the doors, hauling out in handcuffs husbands and wives in the distinctive clothing of ultra-Orthodox Jews. One was a prominent rabbi and head of a synagogue.
It was the dramatic kickoff of a series of well-publicized raids that since late June have netted 26 suspects on charges of stealing $2 million in government benefits. Prosecutors say that the suspects understated their income to get free healthcare, food stamps, rental subsidies and other benefits.
All of those arrested — 13 men and 13 women — were ultra-Orthodox Jews. The charges have tapped into a well of festering hostility toward an insular and eccentric minority.
Once a backwater at the edge of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, Lakewood is now home to one of the largest concentrations of ultra-Orthodox Jews outside of Israel. They are a fast-growing population with a high birthrate; the population of Lakewood has exploded from 45,000 in 1990 to more than 100,000 today. Many of the newcomers are from large families priced out of Brooklyn by gentrification.
Lakewood is now home to one of the largest concentration of ultra-Orthodox Jews outside of Israel.
At first glance, little sets Lakewood apart from any number of other suburban communities on the fringes of the New York metropolitan area. But the differences are there.
Signs are commonly in Hebrew and Yiddish. The Shop-Rite has closed and was replaced by Glatt Gourmet, a kosher supermarket. New subdivisions have Jewish-themed street names, like Hadassah Lane.
Like the Amish, these strictly observant Jews are instantly recognizable by their modest dress — the women in long skirts and wigs that cover their hair, and the men with yarmulkes or black fedoras and tzitzit, the strings hanging out of their shirts that remind them of their religious obligations. Instead of buggies, though, they mostly drive SUVs or minivans to fit large broods of children.
Around New York, there are a handful of similar towns that are dominated by ultra-Orthodox Jews, but only in Lakewood have federal and state authorities laid down the gauntlet so definitively.
Many young families are heavily dependent on government benefits. Couples marry and bear children young, usually in their early 20s while the fathers are full-time students in religious schools, the mothers working part-time doing office work.
With five or more children, many of them with special needs — a result attributed to women having multiple births until late in life and genetic disorders in a relatively closed population — families cannot survive without government assistance, especially to buy health insurance.
You have a family or six or seven or eight ... and they're reporting their total income at $10,000. ... You have to ask -- what is going on here?
At first glance, little sets Lakewood apart from any number of other suburban communities on the fringes of the New York metropolitan area. But the differences are there.
Signs are commonly in Hebrew and Yiddish. The Shop-Rite has closed and was replaced by Glatt Gourmet, a kosher supermarket. New subdivisions have Jewish-themed street names, like Hadassah Lane.
Like the Amish, these strictly observant Jews are instantly recognizable by their modest dress — the women in long skirts and wigs that cover their hair, and the men with yarmulkes or black fedoras and tzitzit, the strings hanging out of their shirts that remind them of their religious obligations. Instead of buggies, though, they mostly drive SUVs or minivans to fit large broods of children.
Around New York, there are a handful of similar towns that are dominated by ultra-Orthodox Jews, but only in Lakewood have federal and state authorities laid down the gauntlet so definitively.
Many young families are heavily dependent on government benefits. Couples marry and bear children young, usually in their early 20s while the fathers are full-time students in religious schools, the mothers working part-time doing office work.
With five or more children, many of them with special needs — a result attributed to women having multiple births until late in life and genetic disorders in a relatively closed population — families cannot survive without government assistance, especially to buy health insurance.
You have a family or six or seven or eight ... and they're reporting their total income at $10,000. ... You have to ask -- what is going on here?
The strictly observant ultra-Orthodox Jews are instantly recognizable by their modest dress.
In Lakewood, 65,000 people — more than half the town’s population — are on Medicaid, the government health program for low-income families, according to state data. Lakewood has more children with two parents receiving government benefits than any other municipality in New Jersey, including large, chronically depressed cities such as Newark and Camden.
A report by the Asbury Park Press found that Lakewood had received 14% of the money from a $34-million state fund for catastrophic illnesses in children, despite having only 2% of the state’s children. It also found that the town had 29 times more grant recipients than any other town in New Jersey.
In Lakewood, 65,000 people — more than half the town’s population — are on Medicaid, the government health program for low-income families, according to state data. Lakewood has more children with two parents receiving government benefits than any other municipality in New Jersey, including large, chronically depressed cities such as Newark and Camden.
A report by the Asbury Park Press found that Lakewood had received 14% of the money from a $34-million state fund for catastrophic illnesses in children, despite having only 2% of the state’s children. It also found that the town had 29 times more grant recipients than any other town in New Jersey.
In 2015, the New Jersey state controller’s office flagged the disproportionate sums of government money being absorbed by Lakewood. The town didn’t look poor by any conventional yardsticks of poverty.
“You have a family or six or seven or eight, somebody is paying the mortgage, somebody is paying the taxes, they have two cars in the driveway, they’ve got food for all the kids … and they’re reporting their total income at $10,000,’’ said Joseph Coronato, the Ocean County prosecutor who took the lead in the case. “You have to ask — what is going on here?’’
In one case unsealed by the court in June, a couple with six children are alleged to have reported their income at $39,000 per year — low enough to qualify for Medicaid — when in fact they were getting more than $1 million annually from a limited liability corporation.
Members of the religious community say that cases of deliberate fraud are rare. For the most part, they say, the couples caught up in prosecutions had failed to report money they’d gotten from parents who were either paying the tuition for children in private schools or helping with the mortgage.
“The rules are very confusing. You have to be a Talmudist to figure out which program treats gifts from family as ordinary income,” said Rabbi Moshe Weisberg, the Lakewood head of what is called the Vaad, a self-governing council for the ultra-Orthodox community.
“You have a family or six or seven or eight, somebody is paying the mortgage, somebody is paying the taxes, they have two cars in the driveway, they’ve got food for all the kids … and they’re reporting their total income at $10,000,’’ said Joseph Coronato, the Ocean County prosecutor who took the lead in the case. “You have to ask — what is going on here?’’
In one case unsealed by the court in June, a couple with six children are alleged to have reported their income at $39,000 per year — low enough to qualify for Medicaid — when in fact they were getting more than $1 million annually from a limited liability corporation.
Members of the religious community say that cases of deliberate fraud are rare. For the most part, they say, the couples caught up in prosecutions had failed to report money they’d gotten from parents who were either paying the tuition for children in private schools or helping with the mortgage.
“The rules are very confusing. You have to be a Talmudist to figure out which program treats gifts from family as ordinary income,” said Rabbi Moshe Weisberg, the Lakewood head of what is called the Vaad, a self-governing council for the ultra-Orthodox community.
Attendees a Lakewood Township housing meeting listen to a proceeding regarding new residential developments.
People most often got in trouble with their Medicaid applications, motivated by their inability to afford market-rate health insurance, which he said ran as high as $30,000 annually for a large family.
Several of the families have disabled children, he noted.
“None of these people used any of this welfare money for an extravagant lifestyle. They were struggling to make ends meet and trying to pay medical bills,” said Harold Herskowitz, a businessman who runs a toy store in Lakewood. He believes the prosecutions were motivated by hostility toward the ultra-Orthodox.
“I’m the child of Holocaust survivors; I don’t appreciate Jewish people dragged out in public early in the morning,” Herskowitz said.
The initial arrests in June received extensive news coverage, with television crews tipped off in advance to film the scenes of couples in handcuffs being led away. Following complaints, the prosecutors have made subsequent arrests more discreetly, but still the publicity rankles.
The case has tapped into a wave of hostility toward the community. Last month, somebody hung an anti-Semitic banner on a Holocaust memorial in Lakewood, and fliers were distributed on the windshields of cars with photos of those arrested under the caption, “Thieving Jews Near You.”
Under fire from many sides, the observant Jews of Lakewood are trying to burnish their reputation in New Jersey. They’ve hosted outreach programs between the community and the police — Bagels, Lox & Cops, as the meetings have been called. Other public programs have been designed to advise ultra-Orthodox families on how to stay on the legal side of public assistance programs.
Lakewood, about 50 miles from New York City, was a resort town for the New York elite beginning in the late 19th century, attracting luminaries such as Mark Twain and members of the Rockefeller family. Their fancy retreats were later turned into kosher hotels catering to working- and middle-class Jews, the town becoming an extension of the Catskills’ Borscht belt across the border in New York state.
In 1943, the Rabbi Aharon Kotler, a Holocaust survivor who fled Lithuania, picked the town for his Beth Medrash Govoha, a yeshiva — religious school — that is now one of the world’s largest with 6,500 students, all men. That would in turn attract other yeshivas, along with Jewish primary schools, kosher delicatessens and shops.
“It was an idyllic little town with a strong Jewish flavor,’’ said Aaron Kotler, the founder’s grandson and current head of the yeshiva, in an interview in his sprawling suburban ranch house, the walls proudly displaying oil paintings of previous generations of bearded rabbis. “My grandfather chose Lakewood because it was quiet, which is ironic because people complain the yeshiva has ruined the quiet.’’
People most often got in trouble with their Medicaid applications, motivated by their inability to afford market-rate health insurance, which he said ran as high as $30,000 annually for a large family.
Several of the families have disabled children, he noted.
“None of these people used any of this welfare money for an extravagant lifestyle. They were struggling to make ends meet and trying to pay medical bills,” said Harold Herskowitz, a businessman who runs a toy store in Lakewood. He believes the prosecutions were motivated by hostility toward the ultra-Orthodox.
“I’m the child of Holocaust survivors; I don’t appreciate Jewish people dragged out in public early in the morning,” Herskowitz said.
The initial arrests in June received extensive news coverage, with television crews tipped off in advance to film the scenes of couples in handcuffs being led away. Following complaints, the prosecutors have made subsequent arrests more discreetly, but still the publicity rankles.
The case has tapped into a wave of hostility toward the community. Last month, somebody hung an anti-Semitic banner on a Holocaust memorial in Lakewood, and fliers were distributed on the windshields of cars with photos of those arrested under the caption, “Thieving Jews Near You.”
Under fire from many sides, the observant Jews of Lakewood are trying to burnish their reputation in New Jersey. They’ve hosted outreach programs between the community and the police — Bagels, Lox & Cops, as the meetings have been called. Other public programs have been designed to advise ultra-Orthodox families on how to stay on the legal side of public assistance programs.
Lakewood, about 50 miles from New York City, was a resort town for the New York elite beginning in the late 19th century, attracting luminaries such as Mark Twain and members of the Rockefeller family. Their fancy retreats were later turned into kosher hotels catering to working- and middle-class Jews, the town becoming an extension of the Catskills’ Borscht belt across the border in New York state.
In 1943, the Rabbi Aharon Kotler, a Holocaust survivor who fled Lithuania, picked the town for his Beth Medrash Govoha, a yeshiva — religious school — that is now one of the world’s largest with 6,500 students, all men. That would in turn attract other yeshivas, along with Jewish primary schools, kosher delicatessens and shops.
“It was an idyllic little town with a strong Jewish flavor,’’ said Aaron Kotler, the founder’s grandson and current head of the yeshiva, in an interview in his sprawling suburban ranch house, the walls proudly displaying oil paintings of previous generations of bearded rabbis. “My grandfather chose Lakewood because it was quiet, which is ironic because people complain the yeshiva has ruined the quiet.’’
Rabbi Aaron Kotler, president of Beth Medrash Govoha, is also a key leader in Lakewood's Jewish community.
Kotler describes Lakewood today as one of the most attractive destinations for young religious Jews to study and raise families, making the demographics similar to other university towns.
“I like to think of Lakewood as poor by choice,’’ said Kotler.
The community has shown itself to be unusually adept at navigating the intricacies of politics and government.
“Their lives depend on knowing everything about how Section 8 [subsidized rental housing] works and getting into WICs,” the government Women, Infants and Children food assistance program, said Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queen College who has written several books on the community.
Politically speaking, the ultra-Orthodox wield clout beyond their numbers, with adult members almost always turning out for elections and voting as a single bloc.
“They tend to vote like the Christian right, and they have learned to make their votes very important,” said Heilman.
In all of New Jersey, Lakewood had the highest concentration of Donald Trump voters in last year’s presidential election – 74.4%. With their children all in private religious schools, they are strong supporters of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary who has called for school vouchers.
Charles and Seryl Kushner, the parents of Trump aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner, are benefactors of the Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva, and the rotunda of the school’s 2-year-old main building is named for them.
Kotler describes Lakewood today as one of the most attractive destinations for young religious Jews to study and raise families, making the demographics similar to other university towns.
“I like to think of Lakewood as poor by choice,’’ said Kotler.
The community has shown itself to be unusually adept at navigating the intricacies of politics and government.
“Their lives depend on knowing everything about how Section 8 [subsidized rental housing] works and getting into WICs,” the government Women, Infants and Children food assistance program, said Samuel Heilman, a sociology professor at Queen College who has written several books on the community.
Politically speaking, the ultra-Orthodox wield clout beyond their numbers, with adult members almost always turning out for elections and voting as a single bloc.
“They tend to vote like the Christian right, and they have learned to make their votes very important,” said Heilman.
In all of New Jersey, Lakewood had the highest concentration of Donald Trump voters in last year’s presidential election – 74.4%. With their children all in private religious schools, they are strong supporters of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary who has called for school vouchers.
Charles and Seryl Kushner, the parents of Trump aide and son-in-law Jared Kushner, are benefactors of the Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva, and the rotunda of the school’s 2-year-old main building is named for them.
Beth Medrash Govoha, a yeshiva founded In 1943 by Rabbi Aharon Kotler, is now one of the world’s largest with 6,500 students, all men.
Ultra-Orthodox votes are even more important in local political races. They have installed candidates who favor their interests on the Lakewood school board, township committee and zoning board.
Lakewood’s 30,000 ultra-Orthodox children are ferried to 130 private religious schools on public school buses — boys and girls separately, since they attend single-sex schools — while public schools with only 6,000 children, mostly Latino and African American, have been gutted by a lack of funding. (This is in part due to a quirk in New Jersey’s school financing formula that requires busing for private school students but reimburses the districts based on public school enrollment.)
Some 4,000 new units of housing have been approved in Lakewood in the last two years, making the township the fastest-growing municipality in New Jersey. Real estate developers catering to the ultra-Orthodox are carving new subdivisions lined with four- and five-bedroom townhouses for large families.
Ultra-Orthodox votes are even more important in local political races. They have installed candidates who favor their interests on the Lakewood school board, township committee and zoning board.
Lakewood’s 30,000 ultra-Orthodox children are ferried to 130 private religious schools on public school buses — boys and girls separately, since they attend single-sex schools — while public schools with only 6,000 children, mostly Latino and African American, have been gutted by a lack of funding. (This is in part due to a quirk in New Jersey’s school financing formula that requires busing for private school students but reimburses the districts based on public school enrollment.)
Some 4,000 new units of housing have been approved in Lakewood in the last two years, making the township the fastest-growing municipality in New Jersey. Real estate developers catering to the ultra-Orthodox are carving new subdivisions lined with four- and five-bedroom townhouses for large families.
Some 4,000 new units of housing have been approved in Lakewood in the last two years, making the township the fastest-growing municipality in New Jersey.
“When I moved here, there were trees. Now I wake up and I’m surrounded by high-density townhouses,” said Tom Gatti, a retiree who heads a coalition of senior citizens opposing the pace of new development in Lakewood. “Anytime you try to challenge anything the ultra-Orthodox are doing, they drop the anti-Semitic card on the table.
“They are not looking to assimilate into the community; they are trying to take over,’’ Gatti said.
The ultra-Orthodox Jews also face criticism from less religious and secular Jews.
“Being observant should, first and foremost, involve living and working ethically,’’ complained a hard-hitting editorial in the Forward, the Yiddish- and English-language Jewish publication based in New York. The editorial called the welfare fraud cases “a desecration of God’s name.’’
“It’s too simple to say that this is a problem with Jews,’’ said Heilman, the sociology professor. “It is not their Jewishness that has created the problems; it is the way they interpret the demands of being Jewish.’’
“When I moved here, there were trees. Now I wake up and I’m surrounded by high-density townhouses,” said Tom Gatti, a retiree who heads a coalition of senior citizens opposing the pace of new development in Lakewood. “Anytime you try to challenge anything the ultra-Orthodox are doing, they drop the anti-Semitic card on the table.
“They are not looking to assimilate into the community; they are trying to take over,’’ Gatti said.
The ultra-Orthodox Jews also face criticism from less religious and secular Jews.
“Being observant should, first and foremost, involve living and working ethically,’’ complained a hard-hitting editorial in the Forward, the Yiddish- and English-language Jewish publication based in New York. The editorial called the welfare fraud cases “a desecration of God’s name.’’
“It’s too simple to say that this is a problem with Jews,’’ said Heilman, the sociology professor. “It is not their Jewishness that has created the problems; it is the way they interpret the demands of being Jewish.’’
22 sept 2017
In September of each year Palestinians recall the egregious massacres committed against them in Lebanon in 1982 which claimed the lives of thousands of civilians.
In his testimony, published by the US "Nation Magazine", the Palestinian historian, Rashid Khalidi, shed light on Washington's involvement in the massacres.
The report noted that the US had a prior knowledge of what the Israeli troops intended to do, adding that when the US special envoy, Morris Draper, met the Israeli criminal who led the operations, Ariel Sharon, the latter told him that he would kill everyone and that no-one would be left to live.
The US responsibility is not just a matter of having a prior knowledge or supplying the Israeli forces with lethal weapons, according to Khalidi who affirmed that the massacres started after US gave the green light for the onslaught.
It was the US, through its foreign ministry, who pushed Palestinians, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), for ceasefire talks and made guarantees for their safety. Sabra and Shatila massacres took place less than a month after that.
An official memo sent by the US administration on 5th August 1982 to the Lebanese government and the PLO said, "Law-abiding Palestinian non-combatants remaining in Beirut will be authorized to live in peace and security. The Lebanese and US governments will provide appropriate security guarantees."
The report was concluded by saying that the US continues to this day to offer blind support for the Israeli occupation costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
In his testimony, published by the US "Nation Magazine", the Palestinian historian, Rashid Khalidi, shed light on Washington's involvement in the massacres.
The report noted that the US had a prior knowledge of what the Israeli troops intended to do, adding that when the US special envoy, Morris Draper, met the Israeli criminal who led the operations, Ariel Sharon, the latter told him that he would kill everyone and that no-one would be left to live.
The US responsibility is not just a matter of having a prior knowledge or supplying the Israeli forces with lethal weapons, according to Khalidi who affirmed that the massacres started after US gave the green light for the onslaught.
It was the US, through its foreign ministry, who pushed Palestinians, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), for ceasefire talks and made guarantees for their safety. Sabra and Shatila massacres took place less than a month after that.
An official memo sent by the US administration on 5th August 1982 to the Lebanese government and the PLO said, "Law-abiding Palestinian non-combatants remaining in Beirut will be authorized to live in peace and security. The Lebanese and US governments will provide appropriate security guarantees."
The report was concluded by saying that the US continues to this day to offer blind support for the Israeli occupation costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
