Trump Rescinds Rules on Bathrooms for Transgender Students

NY Times

President Trump on Wednesday rescinded protections for transgender students that had allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, overruling his own education secretary and placing his administration firmly in the middle of the culture wars that many Republicans have tried to leave behind.

In a joint letter, the top civil rights officials from the Justice Department and the Education Department rejected the Obama administration’s position that nondiscrimination laws require schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice.

That directive, they said, was improperly and arbitrarily devised, “without due regard for the primary role of the states and local school districts in establishing educational policy.”

The question of how to address the “bathroom debate,” as it has become known, opened a rift inside the Trump administration, pitting Education Secretary Betsy DeVos against Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Mr. Sessions, who had been expected to move quickly to roll back the civil rights expansions put in place under his Democratic predecessors, wanted to act decisively because of two pending court cases that could have upheld the protections and pushed the government into further litigation.

But Ms. DeVos initially resisted signing off and told Mr. Trump that she was uncomfortable because of the potential harm that rescinding the protections could cause transgender students, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the internal discussions.

Mr. Sessions, who has opposed expanding gay, lesbian and transgender rights, pushed Ms. DeVos to relent. After getting nowhere, he took his objections to the White House because he could not go forward without her consent. Mr. Trump sided with his attorney general, the Republicans said, and told Ms. DeVos in a meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday that he wanted her to drop her opposition. And Ms. DeVos, faced with the alternative of resigning or defying the president, agreed to go along.

Ms. DeVos’s unease was evident in a strongly worded statement she released on Wednesday night, in which she said she considered it a “moral obligation” for every school in America to protect all students from discrimination, bullying and harassment.

She said she had directed the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate all claims of such treatment “against those who are most vulnerable in our schools,” but also argued that bathroom access was not a federal matter.

Gay rights supporters made their displeasure clear. Outside the White House, several hundred people protested the decision, chanting, “No hate, no fear, trans students are welcome here.”

Individual schools will remain free to let transgender students use the bathrooms with which they are most comfortable. And the effect of the administration’s decision will not be immediate because a federal court had already issued a nationwide injunction barring enforcement of the Obama order.

The dispute highlighted the degree to which transgender rights issues, which Mr. Trump expressed sympathy for during the campaign, continue to split Republicans, even as many in the party argue that it is time to move away from social issues and focus more on bread-and-butter pocketbook concerns.[...]

Muslim Americans unite to raise funds for vandalized Jewish cemetery

update:   Times of Israel  A Palestinian-American activist who has voiced support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to help repair a St. Louis-area Jewish cemetery where at least 170 gravestones were toppled over the weekend.

Linda Sarsour, who played a prominent role in organizing the Women’s March on Washington following US President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January and was a leading surrogate for US Senator Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primaries, started the fundraising campaign with activist Tarek El-Messidi to raise $20,000 for repairs. [...]

Sarsour, who has said the labeling of her as a Hamas supporter by conservative groups in the US is an attempt to tarnish her work, told the Haaretz daily that she is “a critic of the State of Israel. I always will be. I have come out in full support of BDS.”

She also told the paper that she supported Sanders because he was “a candidate who sees the humanity of the Palestinian people, because I am Palestinian,” while also saying she favored a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [...]

===============================

CNN   A fundraiser for a vandalized Jewish cemetery is sending a strong message of unity and tolerance.

The effort organized by Muslim American activists Linda Sarsour and Tarek El-Messidi was launched this week to fund the repairs of nearly 200 headstones that were damaged and toppled in the Chesed Shel Emeth Society cemetery in the St. Louis suburb of University City in Missouri.

The fundraiser exceeded its goal of $20,000 so fast, it has expanded into an effort to support Jewish community centers that have been targets of anti-Semitism.

The vandal or vandals destroyed more that 170 headstones at the cemetery, according Anita Feigenbaum, the cemetery's executive director.

Members of the community have been left rattled.

"A lot of people are coming out (to the cemetery) -- they're just interested to see, 'Was their loved one's monument affected by this?' " Phillip Weiss, owner of a monument company helping the cemetery lift the downed stones, told CNN affiliate KTVI on Tuesday.

This year alone, 54 Jewish community centers in 27 states and one Canadian province received dozens of bomb threats, according to the Jewish Community Center Association.

"All bomb threats this year proved to be hoaxes, and all JCCs impacted have returned to regular operations," the association said in a statement.

Muslim Americans step up to support

Sarsour of MPower Change and El-Messidi of CelebrateMercy organized the crowdfunding campaign to support the vandalized cemetery.

Their goal of reaching $20,000 by the end of March was surpassed in three hours, with donations at nearly $60,000 and rising early Wednesday.

CNN has reached out to Sarsour for comment but has not heard back.

American Muslim communities and organizations have also stepped up to support Jewish community centers that have targets of bomb threats. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those who made the false bomb threats.

Muslim Americans' efforts to support the Jewish community centers are in contrast to Rick Santorum's accusations Tuesday.

"If you look at the fact, the people who are responsible for a lot of this anti-Semitism that we're seeing, I hate to say it, a lot of it is coming from the pro-Palestinian or Muslim communities," Santorum told CNN's Chris Cuomo. Santorum did not provide details or examples to support his assertion.[...]

U.S. Will Stand Up to UN's anti-Israel Bias, U.S. Envoy Nikki Haley Says

Haaretz

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley blasted the UN for what she called its "anti-Israel bias" and vowed that she would not let the UN Security Council target Israel with one-sided condemnations.

"I am here to emphasize that the United States is determined to stand up to the UN's anti-Israel bias. We will never repeat the terrible mistake of Resolution 2334 and allow one-sided Security Council resolutions to condemn Israel. Instead, we will push for action on the real threats we face from the Middle East," she said.

"We stand for peace," she continued. "We support a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is negotiated directly between the two parties, as President Trump reiterated in his meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu."

She also blasted the UN Security Council for focusing its efforts on the Palestinians while giving low priority to other issues, like Iran: "Incredibly, the UN Department of Political Affairs has an entire division devoted to Palestinian affairs … There is no division devoted to illegal missile launches from North Korea ... no division devoted to the world’s number one state-sponsor of terror, Iran. The prejudiced approach to Israeli-Palestinian issues does the peace process no favors. 

"The double standards are breathtaking," she said.

Videos of her comments went viral, with diplomats, reporters and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharing it online.

Rick Santorum: Obama and Moslems to blame for rise in anti-Semitism under Trump

CNN

Former Sen. Rick Santorum clashed with CNN anchor Chris Cuomo on Tuesday morning over who is responsible for a rash of anti-Semitic acts since Inauguration Day.

"If you look at the fact of the people who are responsible for a lot of this anti-Semitism that we're seeing, I hate to say it, a lot of it is coming from the pro-Palestinian or Muslim community," said the former Republican senator and presidential candidate. "So let's just lay out that fact."

Cuomo, however, took issue with Santorum's characterization of the menace, which has taken the form of numerous threats on Jewish Community Centers across the nation.

"I don't know that that's a fact, by the way," Cuomo said. "[Y]ou have white haters historically ... who target the Jews in this country."

"That's not what's going on on college campuses, Chris, white haters," replied Santorum. "Let's say the truth about this."

In all, 48 JCCs in 26 states and one Canadian province received nearly 60 bomb threats during January, according to the the Jewish Community Center Association. Most were made in rapid succession on three days: January 9, 18 and 31. A number of JCCs, including Orlando's, received multiple threats.

On Monday, another wave of bomb threats hit 11 JCCs across the country, bringing the total to 69 incidents targeting 54 JCCs in 27 states, according to the JCCA.

Trump has faced calls from Democrats and Jewish leaders urging him to speak out against the rise in anti-Semitic incidents.

On Tuesday, while speaking at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, he said, "This tour was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms. The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil."

In a separate interview with MSNBC he said, "I will tell you anti-Semitism is horrible, and it's going to stop and it has to stop."[...]

Later in the conversation with Santorum, Cuomo asked why the Trump administration wasn't doing more to directly address the threats, which have shaken much of the nation's Jewish community.

"You guys have no problem going after Muslims for things they don't do, let alone what they do do. So why doesn't Trump go after the Muslims who are doing this on college campuses against the Jews?" he asked.

"I am for him doing that," Santorum said. "I think he should."

In First, Trump Condemns Rise in Anti-Semitism, Calling It ‘Horrible’

NY Times

President Trump said on Tuesday that the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States since his inauguration was “horrible” and “painful,” reacting publicly for the first time to mounting threats targeting Jewish people and institutions after he drew criticism for being slow to condemn them.

During a visit to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, Mr. Trump said he was reminded of the need to combat hatred “in all of its very ugly forms.” He spoke one day after 11 bomb threats were phoned in to Jewish community centers around the country and a Jewish cemetery in University City, Mo., was vandalized.

“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible, and are painful, and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” Mr. Trump said.

The statement came after weeks of private complaints from leaders of major Jewish organizations to members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, including his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about the president’s seeming unwillingness to speak out forcefully against anti-Semitic acts. His failure to do so stoked concern among some Jewish leaders that Mr. Trump, whose presidential campaign drew the support of racist and anti-Semitic groups including the Ku Klux Klan, was at best willing to stay silent about such actions and at worst quietly condoning them.

Mr. Trump’s comment on Tuesday was a rare concession to the demands of outside forces by a president who prides himself on standing his ground. Despite the questions that arose during his campaign, Mr. Trump has never proactively delivered a statement condemning anti-Semitism.

“The president’s sudden acknowledgment of anti-Semitism is a Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration,” said Steven Goldstein, the executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. “When President Trump responds to anti-Semitism proactively and in real time, and without pleas and pressure, that’s when we’ll be able to say this president has turned a corner.”

He added, “This is not that moment.”

The White House was criticized by Jewish groups last month when it issued a statement honoring International Holocaust Remembrance Day that did not mention the six million Jews who perished, instead broadly mentioning “the depravity and horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror” and “those who died.” Pressed on the matter, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, defended the statement as “inclusive” of all of those targeted during the Holocaust, including Gypsies, priests and gay people, and he called the criticism “pathetic.”

Concern mounted among Jewish leaders after a news conference last week at which Mr. Trump reacted angrily to a question about his response to the increasing number of anti-Semitic acts around the nation. The president called the query insulting and demanded that the questioner, who works for a Jewish publication, sit down. The Anti-Defamation League called the president’s reaction “mind-boggling.”

Mr. Trump, who was criticized during his campaign for being slow or halfhearted in condemning hate speech, has been particularly stung by accusations that he is anti-Semitic or that he has nurtured the rise of such sentiments. Such accusations have been leveled against both the president and his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, a former chairman of Breitbart News, a website that has cultivated a white nationalist following.[...]

Still, some leaders said they wished Mr. Trump had made a personal call for his administration to find and prosecute perpetrators of the recent anti-Jewish threats. The Simon Wiesenthal Center urged Mr. Trump to present a plan for combating anti-Semitism and called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to form a task force on the matter.

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks anti-Semitic activities, said the wave of threats was “really worrying,” especially because of the “tendency on the part of this administration to completely overlook terrorism and political violence from the domestic radical right.”

Mr. Potok also welcomed Mr. Trump’s comments, but he criticized them as tardy.

“It’s very nice that President Trump opposes these crimes,” Mr. Potok said. “It might have been helpful if he had done so months or even years earlier.”

Mr. Spicer complained on Tuesday that Mr. Trump was being treated unfairly. “It’s ironic that, no matter how many times he talks about this, that it’s never good enough,” he said at a briefing with reporters. He declined to respond to a shouted question about whether Mr. Trump would ask the Justice Department to prosecute those responsible for the anti-Semitic acts.

Mr. Trump has mentioned his Jewish grandchildren and daughter when questioned about his commitment to combating anti-Semitism.

Yet defenses of Judaism that do not involve fealty to Israel have proved tougher for a man raised in New York, a city heavily populated with Jews.

In an interview with Jake Tapper of CNN at the end of February 2016, soon after Mr. Trump won the South Carolina primary, Mr. Trump demurred when pressed repeatedly about the support offered to him by David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader. “Honestly, I don’t know David Duke,” Mr. Trump said at the time.

Asked by reporters days later why he would not simply disavow Mr. Duke, Mr. Trump shrugged and said, “I disavow, O.K.?”

In one exchange, Sean Spicer demonstrated why there’s skepticism about Trump’s claims of tolerance

Washington Post

After a rash of bomb threats at Jewish community centers nationwide and vandalism at a Jewish cemetery over the weekend, President Trump was pressed for a response more forceful than those he offered during news conferences last week.

Asked about that spike in anti-Semitic activity last Wednesday, Trump chose first to talk about his electoral vote totals, implying that concerns that he may be tacitly supporting anti-Semitic actions were offset by the “tremendous enthusiasm” his candidacy had received. He then suggested that there was nothing new about such behavior, saying that his administration was “going to do everything within our power to stop long-simmering racism and every other thing that’s going on, because a lot of bad things have been taking place over a long period of time.” The following day, he was asked by a Jewish reporter specifically about the bomb threats, and insisted that “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

On Tuesday morning, he offered a reply more typical of a politician.

“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community at community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” he said in prepared remarks. In an interview with a reporter from NBC earlier, he insisted that “it’s going to stop.”

Unfortunately for the president’s efforts to turn the page on the question, though, press secretary Sean Spicer made points during his daily media briefing that illustrate why questions about anti-Semitism and racism have hounded Trump for months.

Spicer was asked by Margaret Brennan of CBS to respond to a strong condemnation of Trump’s Tuesday morning statement by the Anne Frank Center.

BRENNAN: The Anne Frank Center released a pretty strongly worded [statement], saying that these remarks, while well received, are a “Band-Aid” on the cancer within the Trump administration. Saying that there is, whether blessed or otherwise, a sense of xenophobia within this administration.

SPICER: Look. The president has made clear since the day he was elected — and frankly going back through the campaign — that he is someone who seeks to unite this country. He has brought a diverse group of folks into his administration, both in terms of actual positions and people that he has sought the advice of. And I think he has been very forceful with his denunciation of people who seek to attack people because of their religion, because of their gender, because of the color of their skin.

It is something that he’s going to continue to fight and make very, very clear that [it] has no place in this administration. But I think that it’s ironic that no matter how many times he talks about this that it’s never good enough.

Today I think was an unbelievably forceful comment by the president as far as his denunciation of the actions that are currently targeted toward Jewish community centers, but I think he’s been very clear previous to this that he wants to be someone that brings this country together but not divide people, especially in those areas.

So, I saw that statement. I wish that they had praised the president for his leadership in this area. Hopefully as time continues to go by they recognize his commitment to civil rights, to voting rights, to equality for all Americans.

Many of the seeds of Trump’s problem are contained in that response.

First of all, it’s true that Trump has repeatedly said he wants America to be united. As we’ve pointed out, though, that insistence has almost uniformly been expressed as a desire for Trump’s opponents to embrace his presidency. Trump made very little effort to reach out to his political opponents after he won the election, criticizing protesters as being paid and Hillary Clinton voters as being fraudulent. He never moderated his positions from the primary to the general election and then to his administration — certainly his right, but a move that helped assure that his opponents would stay opposed to his presidency. That Spicer thinks the Anne Frank Center should “praise the president for his leadership in this area” is simply baffling.

Second, it’s a stretch to say that Trump has “brought a diverse group of folks into his administration.” Trump’s Cabinet was more white and more male than any since that of Ronald Reagan — until his first pick for labor secretary dropped out and was replaced with a man who is Hispanic. Spicer qualifies this questionable claim with “people that he has sought the advice of,” which offers an infinite amount of wiggle room.

Third, Trump’s commitment to voting rights is already highly questionable. Trump’s insistence that voter fraud is a rampant problem (which it isn’t) seems poised to precede a new effort to restrict voting access. Those efforts have consistently and demonstrably curtailed voting by nonwhite voters.

But the most egregious claim Spicer made — a claim he made over the weekend, too — is that Trump has been “very forceful with his denunciations” and that “no matter how many times he talks about this that it’s never good enough.”

Last week, we catalogued Trump’s previous responses when asked about anti-Semitism and racism. Rarely did he explicitly condemn racist or anti-Semitic behavior, choosing instead to defend himself or distance himself from those acts. A good example was cited by The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple. When a reporter who profiled Melania Trump was attacked by anti-Semitic Trump supporters, Trump told Wolf Blitzer that “I don’t have a message to the fans. A woman wrote a — a article that was inaccurate. Now, I’m used to it. I get such bad articles. I get such — the press is so dishonest, Wolf, I can’t even tell you. It’s so dishonest.”

That’s the first main problem for Trump: He has consistently been squishy about replying to questions about racism and anti-Semitism. The second problem? Many of his policy proposals — on immigration, for example — overlap with the stated aims of racist groups, and the rationalizations for those proposals often use language that reinforces negative or erroneous claims about minority groups.[...]

Spicer’s job is to articulate the positions of the White House, and it can be challenging to offer a robust, comprehensive reply to a question you’ve just heard when there are scores of microphones listening to what you say. What Spicer meant to say isn’t really clear, to be honest, but the framework is. Asked about an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment and about the extent to which Trump has been forceful in pushing back against such sentiment within the White House, Spicer defended the administration’s efforts to keep terrorists out of the country.

It’s the sort of reply that will raise eyebrows among Trump’s critics. And it’s the sort of reply that, had it come from Trump, Spicer may have insisted was a “very forceful denunciation.”

Trump finally declares that Antisemitism and Racism must stop - but mentions no plan of action

Washington Post

President Trump, under pressure to speak out against rising anti-Semitic vandalism in the country, said Tuesday that such acts are “horrible and painful.”

Trump used a morning visit to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture to offer his condemnation, saying his tour “was a meaningful reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms.”

“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community at community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” Trump said.

During an earlier interview with NBC News at the site, Trump said: “Anti-Semitism is horrible and it’s going to stop, and it has to stop.”

“I certainly hope they catch the people,” he added.

On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League reported a wave of bomb threats directed against Jewish Community Centers in multiple states, the fourth series of such threats this year. More than 170 Jewish gravestones were toppled at a cemetery in Missouri over the weekend.

Calls for Trump to condemn the violence had been growing. On Twitter on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic presidential rival, added her voice to those calling on Trump to speak out.

Jewish Community Center “threats, cemetery desecration & online attacks are so troubling & they need to be stopped. Everyone must speak out, starting w/ @POTUS,” Clinton said.

Trump was offered an opportunity to condemn the rising violence at a new conference Thursday. In response to an invitation by a reporter to do so, Trump called the question “insulting” and instead defended his personal beliefs, saying: “I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.”

Earlier in the week, appearing at another news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump was asked about rising anti-Semitic violence across the country and started his answer by talking about the size of his electoral college victory in the fall. Trump said he wants to heal “a divided nation,” but did not explicitly condemn the spate of violence.[...]

President Trump’s words Tuesday were welcomed by some and criticized by others as too late.

“The President’s sudden acknowledgment is a Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration,” said Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. “His statement today is a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting ant-semitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record.”

Goldstein was critical in particular of the White House’s decision not to mention Jews in a statement last month marking the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, called Trump’s statement “as welcome as it is overdue.”

“President Trump has been inexcusably silent as this trend of anti-Semitism has continued and arguably accelerated,” Pesner said. “ The president of the United States must always be a voice against hate and for the values of religious freedom and inclusion that are the nation’s highest ideals.”

Chassidic rebbe from Teveria Moshe Rosenbaum charged with abuse and threats

BHOL

שבועיים לאחר הפרסום הראשון ב'בחדרי' על מעצרו, הוגש היום

 כתב אישום חמור נגד משה רוזנבאום המכונה האדמו"ר מקראקס, הכולל עבירות חמורות ומעשים מתועבים • כתב האישום כולל גם עבירות איומים, הטרדה וניסיון לחבלה חמורה

כתב אישום חמור: שבועיים לאחר הפרסום הראשון ב'בחדרי חרדים' על מעצרו, הגישה היום הפרקליטות כתב אישום חמור נגד משה רוזנבאום המכונה האדמו"ר מקראקס, הכולל עבירות חמורות ומעשים מתועבים. 

דבר מעצרו של רוזנבאום, בן 36, תושב ארה"ב השוהה בישראל שלא כחוק, פורסם לראשונה ב'בחדרי חרדים'. רוזנבאום נעצר לאחר שורה של תלונות שהגיעו לידי חוקרי תחנת משטרת טבריה, בחשד כי ביצע מעשים אסורים וחמורים, במהלך השנים האחרונות. 

כתב האישום מייחס לו שורה של עבירות חמורות ואסורות, איומים, הטרדה, ניסיון לחבלה חמורה בנסיבות חמורות ושהיה בישראל שלא כחוק. על פי כתב האישום, אחד הנפגעים היה בן 15 בלבד, הותקף במהלך נסיעה ברכב של מכר משותף בתחנת דלק עת יצא הנהג. 

במקרה אחר, פנה רוזנבאום לראש ישיבה, הציג עצמו כאדמו"ר וביקש לחזק תלמידים בישיבה בדרך של העברת שיעורים או דרשות. לאחר שיעור שמסר יצר קשר טלפוני עם אחד התלמידים והציע לו להגיע לביתו וללמוד יחד. התלמיד נעתר והגיע לביתו של רוזנבאום. במהלך שהותו ביצע מעשים חמורים בתלמיד הישיבה ואף ביקש ממנו לראות יחד תמונות לא צנועות. לאחר כחצי שנה, צלצל אליו פעם אחר פעם במטרה לשכנעו בוא שוב אך זה לא נענה. 

Rabbi Yakov Horowitz: Mr. Trump; Please Find Your Voice

Dear President Trump:

Your silence in the face of rising anti-Semitism is deafening. As the leader of our great country, and the free world, you do not have the luxury of sitting this one out.

There are those who will say that actions speak louder than words and that your full-throated support of Israel, for which I have publicly expressed my gratitude more than once, is more important than anything you may or may not say. I beg to differ.

Silence is open to interpretation. And words matter.

When you change the subject or are offended by questions about rising anti-Semitism in back-to-back press conferences, there are those who will understand that to be a wink and a nod to that behavior.

When you say offensive and hurtful things about your opponents on the campaign trail and especially when you say negative things about specific groups of people at your rallies and on your twitter feed, that creates a culture of divisiveness and, indeed, hate.

I won't join those who attribute sinister motives to your silence on anti-semitism. That would be unfair.

But I do respectfully ask you to please speak up clearly and forcefully against anti-Semitism and hate of any kind.

(Rabbi) Yakov Horowitz

Adam viewed Eve as his equal and that led to eating from the Tree of Knowledge

Meshvas Nefesh (Bereishis 3:16): And now it remains for me to explain the original thought of creation that man and women were created equal, on the same level and with two faces. Similarly we see that the sun and the moon go through the same window and the moon claimed that it wanted to go into another doman that it wasn’t fit for. Consequently the moon was reduced in size to be subordinate to the sun so that it can only shine when facing the sun. As our Sages note that the sun has never seen the diminishing of the moon because the part which appears to be diminishing is because it is not receiving the light of the sun. So also originally the male and female were created to work the Garden of Eden and to guard it. The job of working it was given to Adam and the guarding was given to Eve. Thus anything to do with the garden was Adam’s responsiblity and anything related to guarding it was Eve’s responsibility. Thus they were equal in level as two friends. And it is well known that two friends who have a close relationship and are equal in level – if they want to have a peaceful relationship it is necessary for each to nullify his own view for that of his fellow. Thus we see that Eve violated two aspects of their agreement. First of all she violated her responsibility to guard the Garden when she allowed the Serpent to enter it. Second not only did she not guard the Garden she also violated the Divine command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and furthermore she pressured her husband to also eat from it because if he resisted her request he was afraid that it would reduce the peace between them. And this is exactly how Adam defended himself against G-d’s accusations. He replied, The woman which You gave me... i.e., “who is equal to me” as I explained before. We see this from the fact that the gematria of “the woman” is the same as “man”. Furthermore Adam said “who You gave with me” i.e., she is equal to me and he didn’t says “who You gave to me”. In other words since You have given her to me to be my companion and that we are both equal in level, I listened to her and nullified my wishes before hers for the sake of peace. We know that G-d Himself allows His name to be erased for the sake of peace in the case of the Sotah. And because of this perception of Eve brought about destruction since she in fact thought she was equal to Adam - she was punished measure for measure that the man should rule over the woman. This is why the man acquires the woman in marriage as it says, “When a man acquires a woman” and it doesn’t say when a woman acquires a man. As is know that whoever acquires something is in control of the purchase. Similarly by divorce, the man is in full control as it says, “And he writes the documents of divorce...” and it doesn’t say that she writes a document of divorce for him.

Tzaror Hamor (Bereishis 3:12): And then Adam replied with an answer that was worse than the first. And he said, The woman which You gave to be with me. Adam was thus equating the slave to the master. Is this the reply of a wise person for whom the King decreed upon him not to eat something specific and he ate it and was now justifying his actions by saying that another slave commanded me to eat it?! Furthermore he is continuing his rebellion and his not showing any regret that he will no longer sin. Instead he is saying I am now eating it and not I ate it – but I am continuing to eat what is left. Therefore he received a double punishment. In contrast the woman replied honestly that the Serpent seduced me to sin because of my weak mind.

Rav S. R. Hirsch (Bereishis 2:18): In the same way as Creation tarried and waited its completions before Man was created and G-d had announced to it this crown of His creation, so was the case here before the creation of Woman. Man was there and all about him all the beauties of paradise blossomed, and still G-d did not pronounce His טוב . It does not say לא טוב לאדם היותו לבודו but it was not good for man to be alone but לא טוב היות האדם לבדו this is not good, Man being alone as long as Man stands alone it is altogether not yet good, the goal of perfection which the world is to attain through him will never be reached as long as he stands alone. The completion of the “good” was not Man but Woman and it was only brought to mankind and the world by Woman. And this fact has been so deeply appreciated by those “orientals” the “rabbis” that they teach in the Talmud only through his wife does a man become a “Man” only husband and wife together are Adam. A task which is too great for one person must be dibvided and just for the accomplishment of the whole of Man’s mission, G-d created woman for Man. And this Woman is to be עזר כנגדו Even looked at quite superficially this designation expresses the whole dignity of Woman, It contains not the slightest reference to any sexual relationship she is placed purely in the realm of Man’s work, it ws there that she was missing; she is to be עזר כנגדו And עזר כנגדו certainly expresses no idea of subordination but rather compelte equality and on a footing of equal independence. Woman stands to Man כנגדו on one line at his side.

Rav S. R. Hirsch (Bereishis 3:12): The woman which You gave to be with me. You wanted that she be equal with me and You commanded that we are to form not only one heart and one soul but also “one flesh”. As one body to fulfill the spiritual desires and wants and that they should be united in will and deed. And this woman – she gave it to me to and her will was decisive for me. Notice that Adam is not claiming that his lust overcame him or that the woman had led him astray. His defense was very simple that he did what his wife wanted.; So here is revealed the equality and harmony which was originally supposed to be between man and his wife.

Scores of headstones vandalized at St. Louis Jewish cemetery. Jewish centers threatened across country.- Don't worry! Trump has reassured us saying he had the biggest electoral win since Reagan

Washington Post

The gravesites of more than 170 Jews were vandalized at a cemetery in University City, Mo., sometime over the weekend.

A groundskeeper arrived Sunday morning to find gravestones overturned across a wide section of the cemetery, the oldest section as it happens, bearing the remains of Jews who died between the late 1800s and the mid-20th century, Anita Feigenbaum, director of the Chesed Shel Emeth Society, told The Washington Post in a phone interview.

She called it a “horrific act of cowardice,” beyond anything the cemetery had experienced in the past.

University City, a section of St. Louis, is named for its proximity to Washington University.

The cemetery was founded by the Russian Jewish community in St. Louis “to aid all Jews who needed burial whether they had the money or not. To this day that’s what we do. We are not for profit. We help in this horrible time in a person’s life.”

Feigenbaum had not completed counting the number of damaged stones Monday evening but during the day said she had found more than 170. The cemetery holds the remains of more than 20,000, she estimated.

She said she was getting an “outpouring of support from across the United States” with people volunteering to help with repairs and was deeply appreciative. University City police said they were investigating.

On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League reported a wave of bomb threats directed against Jewish Community Centers in multiple states, the fourth series of such threats since the beginning of the year, it said.

“While ADL does not have any information at this time to indicate the presence of any actual bombs at the institutions threatened, the threats themselves are alarming, disruptive and must always be taken seriously.”

Responding to an inquiry from NBC News about the threats, the White House issued a statement saying “Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom. The President has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.”[...]

The exchanges were noteworthy in part because of President Trump’s unusual response at a news conference Friday to a question about the rise in anti-Semitic incidents around the country. Rather than condemning them, Trump responded by talking about his electoral college victory, describing the question as unfair.

Breitbart news editor and conservative provocateur - Milo Yiannopoulos Is Disinvited From Conservative Conference

NY Times

The organizers of the Conservative Political Action Conference bowed to intense pressure on Monday and rescinded their invitation to Milo Yiannopoulos, the provocateur and Breitbart News editor, after the publication of a video in which he condones sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and laughs off the seriousness of pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.

The episode, which unraveled quickly online over the weekend, put many conservatives in a deeply uncomfortable position. They have long defended Mr. Yiannopoulos’s attention-seeking stunts and racially charged antics on the grounds that the left had tried to hypocritically censor his right to free speech.

But endorsing pedophilia, it seemed, was more than they could tolerate. The board of the American Conservative Union, which includes veterans of the conservative movement like Grover Norquist and Morton Blackwell, made the decision to revoke Mr. Yiannopoulos’s speaking slot and condemn his comments on Monday.

“We initially extended the invitation knowing that the free speech issue on college campuses is a battlefield where we need brave, conservative standard-bearers,” Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, said in a written statement.

Regarding Mr. Yiannopoulos’ comments, Mr. Schlapp called them “disturbing” and said his explanation of them was insufficient.

fter the video leaked on Twitter from a conservative group called the Reagan Battalion, Mr. Yiannopoulos denied that he had ever condoned child sexual abuse, noting that he was a victim himself as he blamed his “British sarcasm” and “deceptive editing” for leading to a misunderstanding.

But in the tape, the fast-talking polemicist is clear that he has no problem with older men abusing children as young as 13, which he then conflates with relationships between older and younger gay men who are of consenting age.

“No no no. You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means,” Mr. Yiannopoulos says on the tape, in which he is talking to radio hosts in a video chat. “Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13 years old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty,” he adds, dismissing the fact that 13 year olds are children.

The notion of consent, he says, is “arbitrary and oppressive.” [...]

Trump Pursues His Attack on Sweden, With Scant Evidence as usual

NY Times

President Trump escalated his attack on Sweden’s migration policies on Monday, doubling down on his suggestion — based on a Fox News report — that refugees in the Scandinavian country were behind a surge in crime and terrorism.

Mr. Trump set off consternation and ridicule on Saturday when he seemed to falsely imply to an adoring throng at a rally in Florida that a terrorist attack had occurred in Sweden, which has admitted tens of thousands of refugees in recent years.

On Sunday, as questions swirled, a White House spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said that “he was talking about rising crime and recent incidents in general, not referring to a specific issue.”

Mr. Trump then said on Twitter that he was referring to a Fox News segment about an American filmmaker who argues that the police in Sweden were covering up a migrant-driven crime wave.

Officials in both countries expressed alarm and dismay on Monday at Mr. Trump’s remarks. Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said the president should get his information from intelligence agencies and not from television. The Swedish Embassy in Washington offered the Trump administration a briefing on its immigration policies. Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said he was surprised by Mr. Trump’s comments, and noted that Sweden ranks highly on international comparisons of economic competitiveness, human development and income inequality.

“We have challenges, no doubt about that,” he allowed, adding: “We must all take responsibility for using facts correctly and for verifying anything we spread.”

Yet even before the prime minister spoke, Mr. Trump pursued his attack. On Twitter, he suggested that the news media was covering up problems related to migration in Sweden.

Follow Donald J. Trump Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

Give the public a break - The FAKE NEWS media is trying to say that large scale immigration in Sweden is working out just beautifully. NOT!

Immigration is, in fact, a hotly debated issue in Sweden, Germany and many other European countries, and a subject of frequent news coverage.

Moreover, statistics in Sweden do not back Mr. Trump’s claims. Preliminary data released last month by Sweden’s crime prevention council found no appreciable increase in crimes from 2015, when the country processed a record 163,000 asylum applications, to 2016. The council did note an increase in assaults and rapes last year, but also recorded a drop in thefts, robberies and drug offenses.

Officials say they have not seen any evidence for the claim, prevalent in right-wing media like Breitbart and Infowars, that migration has driven a surge in crime. The government has not provided a breakdown of crime statistics according to the ethnic or national background of suspects since 2005, though one right-wing party has called on the government to provide updated statistics.

“The general crime rate in Sweden is below the U.S. national average,” the State Department noted last May.

Although terrorism is a concern for Sweden — an Iraqi-born Swede carried out a suicide bombing in central Stockholm in 2010 — the authorities say they are equally worried about racist hate crimes, including attacks on migrants.

Carl Bildt, a former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, made a jab at Mr. Trump on Twitter: “Just a piece of friendly advice: when you are in a hole, stop digging.”

A terrorism expert, Magnus Ranstorp, research director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish Defense University in Stockholm, said that Mr. Trump was trying to shift the focus of his comments from asylum seekers and crime to immigration in general. [...]

Another lawmaker, Pernilla Stalhammar, the foreign policy spokeswoman for the Green Party, expressed surprise that Mr. Trump had relied on Fox News for information about Sweden.

“The problem is that the segment had a lot of incorrect information in it,” she said. “There aren’t any no-go zones in Sweden and the number of crimes against individuals is at about the same level as it was.”

She added: “This incident demonstrates the importance of thoroughly critiquing sources to prevent spreading incorrect images that risk fomenting xenophobic sentiments in society. That Sweden is portrayed incorrectly is very serious. We cannot allow reality to be kidnapped by untruths that become true just because they are repeated enough times.” [...]

Critics of Sweden’s migration policies have pointed to a Facebook post on Feb. 3 by a police officer, Peter Springare, who said that migrants were taxing Sweden’s pension, education and health care systems and that migrants were the principal culprits in assaults. Some of them are without papers and cannot be properly prosecuted, he said.

“Half of the suspects we cannot even be sure of because they don’t have any valid papers,” he wrote. “Most often this means they are lying about their country of origin and identity.”

However, other police officers disagree. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Monday quoted two police officers interviewed by Mr. Horowitz, Anders Goranzon and Jacob Ekstrom, saying that the filmmaker had selectively edited and distorted their comments to prove his thesis in a video he posted on YouTube. They said Mr. Horowitz had asked them about high-crime neighborhoods, and that they did not agree with his argument about the link between migration and crime.

“This is bad journalism,” Mr. Goranzon said. Mr. Horowitz did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Lofven, the prime minister, told the newspaper Expressen on Feb. 7 that Mr. Springare was exaggerating. “I have a hard time seeing that 100 percent of the police’s investigative capacity is occupied with crimes perpetrated by immigrants,” he said.

The Fox News anchor Chris Wallace warns viewers: Trump crossed the line in latest attack on media

Washington Post

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace cautioned his colleagues and the network's viewers Sunday that President Trump's latest attack on the media had gone too far.

“Look, we're big boys. We criticize presidents. They want to criticize us back, that's fine,” Wallace said Sunday morning on “Fox & Friends.” “But when he said that the fake news media is not my enemy, it's the enemy of the American people, I believe that crosses an important line.”

The “Fox and Friends” anchors had shown a clip of Trump recounting that past presidents, including Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, had fought with the press. They then asked Wallace whether Trump's fraught relationship with the media was a big deal.

In response, Wallace told his colleagues that Jefferson had also once written the following: “And were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Context was important, Wallace said. All presidents fight with the media, but Trump had taken it a step further in making them out to be “the enemy,” he added.

“Yes, presidents have always had — and politicians have always had — problems with the press. They want good press. The press doesn't always give it to them,” Wallace said. “But what Jefferson [was saying] is, despite all of our disputes, that to the functioning of a free and fair democracy, you must have an independent press.”

Trump's contentious relationship with the press has again been in the spotlight in recent days after the president repeatedly attacked the media as “fake news” in several tweets. In one widely shared tweet on Friday, Trump said the media was “not my enemy” but “the enemy of the American People!”[...]

“We can take criticism, but to say we're the enemy of the American people, it really crosses an important line,” Wallace said.

On “Fox & Friends,” host Pete Hegseth countered that perhaps Trump was “taking on the hidden bias” of news outlets that “tell you they're unbiased.”

“Is there something there?” Hegseth asked Wallace. “It’s not about the independent press; it’s about the bias of the press.”

Wallace replied: “I think there's absolutely something there, and if he had said that, you wouldn’t have heard a peep out of me. Lord knows, Barack Obama criticized Fox News. If Donald Trump wants to criticize the New York Times, that’s fine. But it’s different from saying that we are an enemy of the American people. That’s a different thing.”

Wallace finished with a word of warning to those watching who might agree with Trump because he happened to be a president who shared their views.

“And I know there are a lot of [Fox News] listeners out there who are going to reflexively take Donald Trump’s side on this,” he added. “It’s a different thing when it’s a president — because if it’s a president you like trying to talk about the press being the enemy of the people, then it’s going to be a president you don’t like saying the same thing. And that’s very dangerous.” [...]

Wallace pressed Priebus and argued that the president was not referring to individual stories.

“You don’t get to tell us what to do any more than Barack Obama did,” Wallace said after continued arguments with Priebus. “Barack Obama whined about Fox News all the time, but I got to say, he never said that we were an enemy of the people.”

Wallace is not the only high-profile figure to disagree with Trump's declaration about the media. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he did not have any issues with the press and did not see the media as the enemy.

In an interview on NBC's “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said making moves to shut down a free press was “how dictators get started.”

“In other words, a consolidation of power,” McCain told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd from Munich. “When you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I'm not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I'm just saying we need to learn the lessons of history.”

The 80-year-old senator told Todd that a free press was central to a functional democracy, even if news organizations' stories challenged those being held accountable.

“I hate the press. I hate you, especially,” he said to Todd, who laughed. “But the fact is, we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital.”

“If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and, many times, adversarial press,” McCain added. “And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started.”[...]