American Jewish Committee

AJC Shabbat Table

This week, in AJC’s Shabbat Table, we discuss the challenge and reward of the U'netaneh Tokef prayer traditionally recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. As the globe suffers through a deadly pandemic and other natural disasters wreak havoc from coast to coast, U’netaneh Tokef offers us a way to respond repentance, prayer, and charity. We also review two historic events that took place on the 10th of Tishrei, or Yom Kippur. And in memory of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, we read what being Jewish meant to her from a 1996 AJC ad campaign that featured prominent American Jews speaking about their Jewish identities. Justice Ginsburg also inspires some tools for discussing the efficacy of incremental vs. radical change. Read more

Audacious Ambition

Thirty years ago, David Harris took the reins at AJC and revolutionized what it means to be an advocate for world Jewry. Under David’s visionary leadership, AJC has become one of the most influential and transformational forces advancing Jewish interests throughout the world. On October 7, we will come together virtually, along with distinguished guests, to honor David. To all who share David’s values—a steadfast commitment to protecting the Jewish people, standing up for Israel, and defending democracy—we invite you to join us. Donors who contribute $1,250 or more to AJC’s 2020 campaign are invited to attend. The event will include a special virtual commemorative program that will recognize the generosity of AJC supporters. Click here for more information on the ways you can contribute.

On Air

Remembering Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
People of the Pod / 29-minute listen
This week, we sit down with Abbe Gluck, a former clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away last week, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. A professor of law and founding faculty director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School, Professor Gluck and fellow former clerk Gillian Metzger penned an op-ed in The New York Times just days after Justice Ginsburg’s passing, recalling her impact on them and on gender equality in the United States. Professor Gluck joins us to reflect on that legacy. Listen now

Must-reads

How Judaism Animated Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life
Jewish Telegraphic Agency / 2-minute read
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away just before Rosh Hashanah last week, spoke frequently about how Jewish values inspired her, and she was active in Jewish causes and with Jewish organizations. “I am a judge born, raised and proud of being a Jew,” she wrote in an essay for AJC in 1996. “The demand for justice runs through the entirety of the Jewish tradition. I hope, in my years on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, I will have the strength and courage to remain constant in the service of that demand.” Read AJC’s statement about the passing of Justice Ginsburg and listen to a former law clerk reflect on RBG’s legacy with co-host Manya Brachear Pashman on this week’s episode of People of the Pod. Read more

Join AJC’s Campaign to Bar Iran From Tokyo Olympics
AJC.org / 2-minute read
Following the execution of 27-year-old Iranian wrestling champion Navid Afkari, AJC has launched a global campaign to bar Iran from participating in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. Afkari was arrested during Iran’s 2018 economic protests and charged with “insulting the supreme leader” and “waging war against God.” Iranian authorities tortured him into confessing to the murder of a security guard. “Iran’s record of abuse in sports is just one area of an elaborate tapestry of wholesale violations of basic human rights carried out by the Islamic Republic against its own citizens,” states AJC’s public letter to International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach. Join AJC and sign the letter, which details Iran’s repeated and ongoing violations of the Olympic Charter, of the Olympic ethos, and of basic human rights. Also this week, King Salman, the 85-year-old monarch of Saudi Arabia, used his first speech at the United Nations General Assembly, to single out Iran as one of the “forces of extremism and chaos” in the Middle East. Read more

France Can’t Keep Ignoring Hezbollah and Bring Peace to Lebanon
Miami Herald / 2-minute read
AJC European Director Simone Rodan-Benzaquen and AJC Paris Director Anne-Sophie Sebban-Bécache write in the Miami Herald that France’s efforts at establishing peace in Lebanon are futile without addressing Hezbollah as what it is: a global terrorist organization. “By considering Hezbollah as a legitimate interlocutor in the process — engaging its representatives in Lebanon — France is perpetuating the problems,” the Paris and European Directors write. “Unless (Emmanuel) Macron addresses the issue of Hezbollah, nothing will change.” Read about Hezbollah’s culpability in this piece by Aaron Jacob, AJC’s Director of Diplomatic Affairs. Join AJC and urge the international community to do away with the fiction that only the military wing of Hezbollah carries out terror and ban Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization. Read more

Good to Know

Abe Shinzo Boosted Japan’s Ties to Jews and Israel
The Jerusalem Post / 2-minute read
When Japans’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo visited the Anne Frank House museum in the Netherlands, he became one of the most prominent world leaders to have ever done so. Abe, who read The Diary of Anne Frank as a child, remarked that he wished to “reiterate lasting and profound friendship between Japan and the Jewish people around the world.” Dylan Adelman, AJC’s Assistant Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute, writes in The Jerusalem Post that this sentiment ran throughout Abe’s tenure as the longest serving prime minister in Japanese history, since 2012, and an earlier stint in 2006-2007. Abe, who stepped down as prime minister on September 17 for health reasons, is a true friend of the Jewish people and Israel, Adelman writes: “His actions and his words have consistently demonstrated that he understands Jews, he respects Jews, and he sees great importance in the bond between the Jewish and Japanese peoples.” In 2019, AJC awarded Abe its Light unto the Nations Award, AJC’s highest honor bestowed on world leaders who exhibit leadership, courage and principle. Watch Abe address AJC Global Forum 2015. Read more

YouTube Shuts Down SFSU Webcast Featuring Palestinian Hijacker
The Forward / 3-minute read
Just 22 minutes into a long-planned September 23 seminar hosted by San Francisco State University and featuring Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled, the live broadcast on YouTube abruptly stopped. Opponents of Khaled’s appearance convinced Zoom and Facebook not to host the panel on which she was scheduled to speak. When the organizers switched to YouTube, the company took them off one channel, then knocked them off again when they popped up on another. Khaled is a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist organization. In 1969, she hijacked a TWA flight, later blowing up the front of the plane. A year later she was apprehended during a foiled attempt to hijack an El Al flight. AJC tweeted: “Thank you to @Facebook and @Google for joining @Zoom_us in recognizing this event for what it is: incitement to violence. Still waiting for @SFSU to come to the same realization.” Read more

Arizona State University Adopts IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
The Jerusalem Post / 1-minute read
Arizona State University has become the second American university to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism after the university's student government passed a resolution on the matter. Florida State University is the only other school to adopt the IHRA definition, which includes clauses referring specifically to assaults on Israel’s existence as potential forms of antisemitism. AJC tweeted: “We applaud the student leadership at @ASU for taking strong action against antisemitism on campus.” The inverse happened in Illinois, where the University of Illinois adopted a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions resolution. AJC tweeted: “We are disheartened to learn that @ILStudentGov passed a BDS resolution this evening. The BDS movement is rooted in antisemitism and only hurts the cause for peace.” Read more

Tidings

Passion of Christ Part Deux? (The Forward)
Dancing Rabbis Stranded (Tablet Magazine)
Enigma of the Etrog (Israel 21c)

The articles featured here do not necessarily reflect AJC’s positions.

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