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Category: Politics

Brothers mourned for their embrace of ‘joy and love and happiness’

Brothers mourned for their embrace of ‘joy and love and happiness’

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The Atlantic reports: Cecil and David Rosenthal were buried in matching caskets made of wood, each adorned with a single Jewish star. The brothers, 59 and 54, were two of the 11 Jews killed in Pittsburgh on Saturday, remembered by all as irrepressibly friendly synagogue regulars. But they were also vulnerable in a different way than the other victims of the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue: The brothers lived with profound intellectual impairment; Cecil, for example, could neither read…

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As rich nations close the door on refugees, Uganda welcomes them

As rich nations close the door on refugees, Uganda welcomes them

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The New York Times reports: President Trump is vowing to send the military to stop migrants trudging from Central America. Europe’s leaders are paying African nations to block migrants from crossing the Mediterranean — and detaining the ones who make it in filthy, overcrowded camps. But Solomon Osakan has a very different approach in this era of rising xenophobia. From his uncluttered desk in northwest Uganda, he manages one of the largest concentrations of refugees anywhere in the world: more…

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Thousands support Pittsburgh Jewish leaders calling on Trump to ‘denounce white nationalism’

Thousands support Pittsburgh Jewish leaders calling on Trump to ‘denounce white nationalism’

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The Washington Post reports: More than 16,000 people have signed an open letter to President Trump from the leaders of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish group who say the president will not be welcome in the city unless he denounces white nationalism and stops “targeting” minorities after a mass shooting Saturday at a local synagogue left 11 dead. The letter, which was published and shared on Sunday, was written by 11 members of the Pittsburgh affiliate of Bend the Arc, a national…

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Growing anti-Semitism stuns American Jews

Growing anti-Semitism stuns American Jews

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The New York Times reports: Until recent years, many Jews in America believed that the worst of anti-Semitism was over there, in Europe, a vestige of the old country. American Jews were welcome in universities, country clubs and corporate boards that once excluded their grandparents. They married non-Jews, moved into mixed neighborhoods and by 2000, the first Jew ran for vice president on a major party ticket. So the massacre on Saturday of 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, by…

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Trump calls media the ‘true Enemy of the People’ the same day a bomb is sent to CNN

Trump calls media the ‘true Enemy of the People’ the same day a bomb is sent to CNN

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Vox reports: President Donald Trump is following through on his threat to take his rhetoric and “tone it up,” again upping his attacks on the media — even as calls arose across the country to turn down the temperature on divisiveness after a week of disturbing violence. A few hours later, another suspicious package, similar to the pipe bombs mailed out last week, was found addressed to CNN. The FBI is investigating. [Continue reading…]

U.S. Jews’ despair over Pittsburgh atrocity compounded by Trump’s complicity and Netanyahu’s hypocrisy

U.S. Jews’ despair over Pittsburgh atrocity compounded by Trump’s complicity and Netanyahu’s hypocrisy

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Chemi Shalev writes: When Trump said Saturday that the attack in Pittsburgh might not have been as bloody if the synagogue had hired armed guards, he was essentially blaming the Jewish victims for their own death; proving, in the process, how detached he is from the sentiments of the liberal Jewish majority, which abhors the unflinching Republican support for guns and their owners. Trump’s insensitive assertion proved to anyone who still harbored doubt that he is eminently unqualified to reassure…

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Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is a moment of reckoning for American Jews

Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is a moment of reckoning for American Jews

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Jay Michaelson writes: After the 9/11 attacks, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said that countries now had to choose between fighting terror and abetting it, that there was no neutral ground. In his metaphor, you were either sitting in the smoking section, or the no-smoking section. In the wake of the worst attack on Jews in American history, all of us, but especially American Jews like me, face a similar decision. We either support Donald Trump and the movement of…

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Why the Tree of Life shooter was fixated on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

Why the Tree of Life shooter was fixated on the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

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Masha Gessen writes: A couple of hours before opening fire in a Pittsburgh synagogue, Robert Bowers, the suspected gunman, posted on the social network Gab, “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” HIAS is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and Bowers had posted about it at least once before. Two and a half weeks earlier, he had linked to a HIAS…

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George Washington’s letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island

George Washington’s letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island

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On August 18,1790, during his second year in office as America’s first president, George Washington wrote: If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and a happy people. The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a…

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‘He felt that somebody was finally talking to him’: How the package-bomb suspect found inspiration in Trump

‘He felt that somebody was finally talking to him’: How the package-bomb suspect found inspiration in Trump

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The Washington Post reports: The first thing that stood out about Cesar Sayoc was his vehicle. As far back as 2002, lawyer Ronald Lowy recalled, the windows of Sayoc’s white Dodge Ram van were covered in stickers of Native American regalia. Though Sayoc was Filipino and Italian, he claimed to be a proud member of the Seminole tribe, Lowy said. The lie was one of many Sayoc would spread about himself over the years. He falsely claimed to have worked…

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Cesar Sayoc’s path on social media: From food photos to partisan fury

Cesar Sayoc’s path on social media: From food photos to partisan fury

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Kevin Roose writes: [B]efore Mr. Sayoc’s accounts were taken down [by Facebook and Twitter], The New York Times archived their contents. And a closer study of his online activity reveals the evolution of a political identity built on a foundation of false news and misinformation, and steeped in the insular culture of the right-wing media. For years, these platforms captured Mr. Sayoc’s attention with a steady flow of outrage and hyperpartisan clickbait and gave him a public venue to declare…

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Trump’s incendiary rhetoric has emboldened Cesar Sayocs all over America

Trump’s incendiary rhetoric has emboldened Cesar Sayocs all over America

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Michael D’Antonio writes: Trump campaigned using taunts and suggestions that all the Cesar Sayocs could have heard as calls to violent action. When a protester interrupted a rally, Trump announced that he would “like to punch him in the face” and waxed sentimental about the days when protesters would be “carried out on stretchers.” He referenced a “Second Amendment” response to Hillary Clinton’s possible election and offered to pay the legal bills for those who assault his protesters. Trump allies…

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America’s #1 rabble-rouser

America’s #1 rabble-rouser

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Rick Wilson writes: No one in American political life has even a fraction of his power to inspire behavior and action. No one. It’s time we recognize that Trump’s unique social media presence is a weapon of radicalization. No one else in the American political landscape stokes the resentments, fears, and prejudices of his base with equal power. Trump never misses a chance to miss a chance to be bigger and better. He never fails to close the door on…

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Trump fumes after mail bomber ‘interrupts’ his campaign message

Trump fumes after mail bomber ‘interrupts’ his campaign message

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Politico reports: The would-be terrorist who failed to harm CNN and George Soros did succeed at one thing: ruining President Donald Trump’s week. Trump had hoped to capitalize on growing Republican enthusiasm in the final weeks of the midterm campaign — stoking fears of a Central American migrant caravan and hoping his Thursday unveiling of a plan to lower prescription drug prices would hold the news media’s attention heading into the weekend. But even Trump can’t shape the media narrative…

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There’s no path to victory in Afghanistan — there never was

There’s no path to victory in Afghanistan — there never was

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Fred Kaplan writes: This month, for the first time, the U.S. armed forces are recruiting young men and women who weren’t yet born when the invasion of Afghanistan took place. The war has been going on for 17 years now (17-year-olds can enlist with parental consent), making it the longest war in American history. Yet we are no closer than we have ever been to accomplishing our objectives, in part because those objectives have been so sketchily, inconsistently, and unrealistically…

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What’s a Muslim to do about Hajj?

What’s a Muslim to do about Hajj?

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Aymann Ismail writes: As excruciating details have leaked over the past two weeks about the killing and reported dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi government agents, the most high-profile public backlash has come in the form of defections from a glittery upcoming conference, the Future Investment Initiative, planned by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, along with dozens of other politics, business, and media figures, have pulled…

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