#holocausteducationweek #Holocaust

Please consider signing The Witness Pledge. Be a witness for those who can no longer do so themselves. thewitnesspledge.org

Please see my latest article about Holocaust Education Week. blogs.timesofisrael.com/holo…

Netanyahu offered immunity to any Gazan who releases hostages. Now Daniel Birnbaum, former CEO of SodaStream, is offering $100,000 to anyone who retruns an Israelis hostage alive. The deadline to do so is Wednesday Oct 23. ❗Share this - we may just save some lives❗

Listen to the latest episode of JTeach OnAir on your favourite podcast provider. "When Education Crosses Over Into Indoctrination".[podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcas…]

JTeach OnAir is back on air! For great content head to jteachonair.buzzsprout.com or look for JTeach OnAir on your favourite podcast provider!

A post for October 7th. blogs.timesofisrael.com/octo… .

Please take the time to read my latest blog post inspired by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and my own Jewish Studies students.

We are approaching the one year anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Filmmaker Igal Hecht created the film "The Killing Roads" for you to see for free in its entirety. Watch it now. Viewer discretion advised. @TKR_movie x.com/TKR_movie/status/18412…

Exciting stuff!

This year, once again, I am honoured to be joining some of the world’s foremost Holocaust educators as a presenter for the Liberation75 Student Holocaust Education Day. To see the program and register, go to: liberation75.org/student-day

Summer School with a flexible schedule and high school credits with Jewish content. Now more than ever, we need to instil a sense of Jewish pride and Jewish identity in our Jewish youth. For more information or to register, visit jteachacademy.ca

Our school display honouring the victims of the Shoah for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th. May their memory always be a blessing to their loved ones. @YRDSB @yadvashemschool @CanadianFSWC @IsraelinToronto @Liberation_75 @yadvashem

While looking at Israeli flags online yesterday saw this on Amazon Canada; "Israeli Jew Decor". This is not an appropriate description. I urge @amazonca to change the description or to have the seller do so. @CIJAinfo @bnaibrithcanada @CanadianFSWC

The Witness Pledge project. thewitnesspledge.org

It’s been 100 days since we’ve seen our loved ones. #BRINGTHEMHOMENOW! 🎗️

.@TPSMyronDemkiw has confirmed that the terrorist flag allegedly waved in Toronto last weekend belongs to the PFLP, a Palestinian terror group. We commend @TorontoPolice for laying charges so quickly, sending a strong message that such incitement to hate and terror on our streets will not be tolerated. cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/t…

In Canada, the willful promotion of hatred is illegal. Protestors are purposefully harassing and intimidating Jewish people where they live. They’re openly promoting hatred against Jews and Israelis - which leads to hate crimes against Jews at an all time high.

I’d like to address a recent argument that Arab opposition to Zionism is only due to its “practice” rather than its principle. That argument would require plenty of evidence of Arab support for Zionism that went sour only once Zionism was practiced “badly”. There is no such evidence. Quite the contrary. Arab opposition to Zionism was, from the beginning, opposition to the principle, because the idea of a Jewish right to self determination was itself unacceptable. Why? Two small reasons and one big. One small reason: general opposition to immigration. No-one likes immigrants and Arabs are no exception. This is a small reason, because if it were only about immigration, the conflict would not have become what it is. Another small reason: massive numerical imbalance: Arabs were the overwhelming majority in the entire region of the Middle East - they saw no reason why they should entertain any kind of compromise with a minority group. This is a small reason, because had it been only that, some measure of land given to the Jews would have been ultimately acceptable. But the big reason, the one that underlies the conflict and explains its tenacity, that is at the root of the total and blanket rejection of the principle of Zionism, long before it had the chance to be “badly implemented” is that Zionism, as a liberation movement that envisioned equal dignity for the Jewish people as a people in the midst of the vast lands claimed to the Arab world and Islam, challenged the social and theological “proper place” of the Jew. And what is that “proper place” of the Jew? Stateless, powerless, of lower status and dignity, and most important - living at the exclusive protection and mercy of the Arab and Muslim ruler. The one thing Jews, individually and collectively, could not do is protect themselves by themselves. The historian Bernard Lewis observed that the status of Jews in Arab and Muslim lands was never as good or as bad as it was in Europe, but there was never any question that the Jew was not the equal of the Arab and Muslim. Imagine the civilizational shock when Jews in the name of Zionism claim themselves to be the equals, individually and collectively of Arabs and Muslims, and insisting on defending themselves by themselves. These kinds of transformations are not easily accepted, and certainly not without violence. And that is the issue: from the beginning Zionism encountered ever growing Arab and Muslim violence opposed to the very principle of Jewish equality and self-determination, not to the manner of its implementation. If anything, Zionism took care to implement itself in the most agreeable way: working through land purchase, and mostly malaria infested land, eradicating malaria, and creating prosperity. It ensured whatever international legitimacy was available at the time - a unanimous agreement of the League of Nations to its project. It made it clear that it sought to live with and next to Arabs, and perhaps naively imagined that as a movement that sought to build and develop, rather than exploit, it would be embraced. The idea that Arabs oppose Zionism because it displaced them is a ahistorical argument that reverses cause and effect. It is because of Arab violent opposition to Zionism that: 1) Jews were denied their state in the 1930’s and had the gates closed to Jewish immigration at the most difficult moment in Jewish history (few people realize the extent to which Arab violence in the 1930’s condemned hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jews to mass killing in Europe, when they could have still escaped) 2) Arabs became refugees in a completely unnecessary war. Displacement was the outcome of a war that need never have happened if Arabs had accepted partition. Arab displacement was not the cause of Arab Anti-Zionism - it was its tragic outcome. And the path to peace remains today the same as it always was, for Arabs to abandon Anti-Zionism, and we can all live side by side in peace.