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March 2017

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

‘Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross’ Review: Photos From Inside The Holocaust Henryk Ross risked his life to document the daily life of Jews living in Poland’s Lodz Ghetto, hiding his images until the end of the war By William Meyers

By on March 30th, 2017

Boston

Jews have a way with catastrophe; the hundreds of images in “Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross” are testimony to it. Ross said, “Having an official camera, I was able to capture all the tragic period in the¼ Lodz Ghetto. I did it knowing that if I were caught my family and I would be tortured and killed.” Ross (1910-1991) was one of the only two Jews in the Ghetto allowed to have cameras; they were required to take pictures to be used by the Nazis for propaganda, but each also surreptitiously documented the deterioration and removal of the Ghetto’s inhabitants. It is a tradition that goes back to the prophet Jeremiah crying, “Alas,” over the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.
Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Through July 30

Very little is known for sure about Ross. He was apparently born in Warsaw and may have had a career there as a photojournalist of some sort. In 1939 he joined the Polish army, and when it was defeated he ended up in Lodz. In the middle of present-day Poland, Lodz was an important industrial city with a mixed population of Poles, Germans and Jews. With the Nazi conquest, the Jews were moved into a blighted section and physically segregated from the rest of the city. All Jews, eventually well over the original 160,000, were made to wear a yellow Star of David sewn on their clothes. The Germans found Ross’s name on the Photographers Association list and confiscated his camera, but when the Judenrat, the “Jewish council” set up by the Nazis for inhabitants to administer the Ghetto, was established, the camera was returned.

Ross was responsible for taking identity photos, recording the activities of the Judenrat, and documenting the factories established in the Ghetto in the hope that the Nazis would spare Jews doing productive work. Examples of these pictures were included in the 6,000 negatives Ross buried in the fall of 1944. “I buried my negatives in the ground in order that there should be some record of our tragedy….I was anticipating the total destruction of Polish Jewry. I wanted to leave a historical record of our martyrdom.” The negatives were in metal canisters placed in wooden boxes, but when they were retrieved in 1945, water had ruined half of them. The swirls and signs of deterioration on the prints made from the still usable ones are emblematic of the harrowing experiences of their subjects. CONTINUE AT SITE

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

David Friedman Sworn In as U.S. Ambassador to Israel Vice president says nomination shows ‘America stands with Israel’

By on March 30th, 2017

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump gained his first ambassador Wednesday when attorney David Friedman was sworn in as America’s envoy to Israel.

Vice President Mike Pence administered the oath of office to Mr. Friedman and hailed Mr. Trump’s decision to nominate his former bankruptcy attorney for the sensitive diplomatic post as “one of the clearest signs” of the president’s commitment to the state of Israel and the Jewish people.

“If the world knows nothing else, the world will know this: America stands with Israel,” Mr. Pence said as Mr. Friedman’s wife, Tammy, their five children and most of their grandchildren watched. Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., also attended the ceremony.
Mr. Friedman, whose nomination faced resistance from Democrats and some Jewish groups, said he was “humbled” by the trust Mr. Trump had placed in him. He also noted his standing as the first of Mr. Trump’s ambassador nominees to win Senate confirmation and be sworn in to office.

“Those facts speak volumes about how highly the Trump-Pence administration prioritizes our unbreakable bond with the state of Israel,” Mr. Friedman said.

He said he recently resigned from the law firm in which he was a founding partner.

The Senate approved Mr. Friedman’s nomination last week by a vote of 52-46, largely along party lines.
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BOOKS Comments turned off

The Nerds Who Make English The Merriam-Webster editor informs us that the German word for a lower-back tattoo is “Arschgeweih,” which literally means “ass antlers.” Henry Hitchings reviews “Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries” by Kory Stamper.

By on March 30th, 2017

‘Lexicographer” is not a seductive word. Samuel Johnson famously defined it, more than 260 years ago, as “a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge.” His own “Dictionary of the English Language” belied this impression of soulless passivity, but the image has stuck. There is a common assumption that dictionaries are put together by faceless dullards. In the judgmental world of online dating, saying that you’re a lexicographer has all the aphrodisiac potency of admitting that you enjoy reorganizing your sock drawer.

Yet the reputation of lexicography is starting to change, and the main reason is the emergence of a new generation of word mavens who brighten social media with linguistic curios and discussion points. Among these is Kory Stamper, an editor at Merriam-Webster. That venerable firm of course takes half its name from Noah Webster, and one of Webster’s key statements was that “the business of a lexicographer is to collect, define, and arrange, as far as possible, all the words that belong to a language.” As Ms. Stamper comments, modern practitioners shift the emphasis: Today the aspiration is “to collect, define, and arrange, as far as possible, all the words that belong to a language.” After all, no dictionary can document everything.

Ms. Stamper’s responsibilities at Merriam-Webster include defining new words and revising out-of-date entries. She also appears in its “Ask the Editor” video series, where she holds forth on matters such as the correct plural of “octopus” and the question of whether Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” actually has anything to do with irony—two topics beloved of half-informed pedants. Meanwhile, on Twitter, where wholly uninformed pedants outnumber any other group, she is a voice of sassy realism, apt to celebrate “badass word-nerd women” or proffer golden nuggets of trivia, such as the fact that the German word for a lower-back tattoo is “Arschgeweih” (which literally means “ass antlers”).

In “Word by Word,” Ms. Stamper maintains this “nitty-gritty, down-and-dirty, worm’s-eye view.” We learn that her suitability for her chosen career revealed itself when she was a child. Growing up in Colorado, she devoured her parents’ hoarded catalogs. At age 9, having gorged on a medical dictionary, she alarmed her father by announcing, “I’m reading about scleroderma.” Though she doesn’t say so, learning about an ailment that causes hardening of the skin may have been useful preparation for a life of being teased by people who think that logophilia is itself an illness, not an endowment. CONTINUE AT SITE

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

America’s Growing Labor Shortage Lack of workers in ag and construction is hurting the economy.

By on March 30th, 2017

President Trump approved the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, and good for him, but will there be enough workers to build it? That’s a serious question. Many American employers, especially in construction and agriculture, are facing labor shortages that would be exacerbated by restrictionist immigration policies.

Demographic trends coupled with a skills mismatch have resulted in a frustrating economic paradox: Millions of workers are underemployed even as millions of jobs go unfilled. The U.S. workforce is also graying, presenting a challenge for industries that entail manual labor.

Construction is ground zero in the worker shortage. Many hard-hats who lost their jobs during the recession left the labor force. Some found high-paying work in fossil fuels during the fracking boom and then migrated to renewables when oil prices tumbled. While construction has rebounded, many employed in the industry a decade ago are no longer there.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are nearly 150,000 unfilled construction jobs across the country, nearly double the number five years ago. The shortage is particularly acute in metro areas like Miami, Dallas and Denver, and the worker shortage is delaying projects and raising costs.

A January survey by the Associated General Contractors of America found that 73% of firms had a hard time finding qualified workers. More firms identified worker shortages as a big concern (55%) than any other issue including federal regulations (41%) and lack of infrastructure investment (18%). Demand and salaries for subcontractors (e.g., carpentry and bricklaying) are going through the roof.

On the current demographic course, the shortage will worsen. The average age of construction equipment operators and highway maintenance workers is 46. When middle-aged workers retire, there won’t be many young bodies to replace them. Most high schools have dropped vocational training, and more young people are enrolling in colleges that don’t teach technical skills.

The farm labor shortage is also growing, which has caused tens of millions of dollars worth of crops to rot in the fields. Farmers can’t get enough H-2A visas for foreign guest workers, some of whom have migrated to higher-paying occupations. Workers also often arrive late due to visa processing delays by the Labor Department. The undocumented workforce has shrunk as more Mexicans have left the country than have arrived in recent years.

The Western Growers Association reports that crews are running 20% short on average. Boosting wages and benefits—many employers pay $15 an hour with 401(k)s and paid vacation—has been little help. Instead, employers are cannibalizing one another’s farms. In 2015 the country’s largest lemon grower Limoneira raised wages to $16 per hour, boosted retirement benefits by 20% and offered subsidized housing. But now vineyards in Napa are poaching workers from growers in California’s Central Valley by paying even more.

Some restrictionists claim that cheap foreign labor is hurting low-skilled U.S. workers, but there’s little evidence for that. One Napa grower recently told the Los Angeles Times that paying even $20 an hour wasn’t enough to keep native workers on the farm.

A new paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research concludes that terminating the Bracero program, which admitted seasonal farm workers from Mexico during the 1940s and ’50s, did not raise wages of domestic workers. Meantime, a 2014 study found that Arizona’s E-Verify mandate on employers reduced “employment opportunities among some low-skilled legal workers.”

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

The Deal Trump Shouldn’t Make With Russia Trading Ukraine for Syria would legitimize Moscow’s conquest and endanger Europe’s security.By Mark Helprin

By on March 30th, 2017

The new administration may be sorely tempted to close a showy diplomatic “deal,” the origins of which are President Obama’s extraordinary policy failures in the Middle East. With American financing rather than resistance, Iran has thrown a military bridge from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, a feat the U.S. could not equal at the height of its powers when it unsuccessfully tried to construct the Central Treaty Organization in the 1950s. Worse still, Mr. Obama’s “executive agreement” with Tehran gives it a U.S.-guaranteed path to nuclear weapons.

As Mr. Obama denuded the Mediterranean of armed American naval vessels and backed off supposed red lines, Russia re-established itself in the Middle East after having been almost completely excluded during the previous nine presidential terms. The result of such astounding American incompetence has been genocidal wars and the metaphorical transformation of the regional security situation from gunpowder into nitroglycerin.

It threatens to become even worse, in that with the presence of rival great powers, the processes at work may leap the bounds of their containment in the Middle East and unravel the long peace of Europe. Because of the March 7 meeting of the American, Russian, and Turkish military chiefs, and simultaneous Russian signals that it is ready, for a price, to abandon its support of Iran, Iran—as documented by the Middle East Media Research Institute—is in a state of “shock.” It knows that it cannot stand against the might and favorable geographic position of a combination of these forces and the proximate Sunni states. President Hassan Rouhani recently rushed to Moscow, but his meetings there were conspicuously opaque about the future of Iran in Syria.

Excluding Iranian troops and arms from Syria and Lebanon would be a major achievement, which could have been a feature of the Obama foreign policy before Russia reinforced in Syria. American, Saudi, Turkish, and Jordanian air power might easily have laid an air blockade across the 1,000 miles from Tehran to Damascus, and kept the few roads in wide-open country clear of overland supply. Needless to say, Iran would have found the sea route unavailing.

Even now, with a Russian air component in western Syria, it is unlikely that Moscow would risk breaking a blockade any more than it attempted to breach the 1962 quarantine of Cuba, for the reason that it could not then and cannot now project power into the area of contention with even a small fraction of the force that would resist it. As the Soviets did in the Cuban crisis, Russia might resort to nuclear bluffing, but it would be only that. Its interests in the Levant, which, given its lack of power projection and capable allies, it cannot exploit, would not be worth an empty threat that it would then have to withdraw.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Jews are safer in Israel’s bunkers than in French ghettos France is losing its Jews, who prefer a place where their children are free to live normal lives, where they are defended and can defend themselves. ByGiulio Meotti

By on March 29th, 2017

Abdelghani Merah, the brother of the terrorist who, five years ago, killed a little girl, a rabbi and two of his children in front of Toulouse’s Jewish school Ozar Hatorah, is busy these days with a kind of “journey” of tolerance to preach against his brother’s deeds. That massacre was the first of a long series of anti-Semitic attacks, culminating in the attack at the supermarket Hyper Kasher in Paris.

But Merah’s victims, the Jewish community, is busy with another kind of “trip”. Le Figaro newspaper reported the data on the situation in the French city. 300 Jewish families have packed and left Toulouse since the killing spree. The French newspaper speaks openly of “exile”.

300 Jewish families have packed and left Toulouse since the killing spree. The French newspaper speaks openly of “exile”.
Jean-Michel Cohen was among the first to rush to the site of the massacre, where the Muslim extremist killed Jonathan Sandler, his two sons Gabriel and Arieh, and Myriam Monsonego. “The situation has become unbearable and I was afraid for my family”, he says today from Israel. “Toulouse is the French city most affected by departures”, says Marc Fridman, vice president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in the Midi-Pyrenees. “It is a paradise for us”, says Cohen from Tel Aviv. “Here we are safe. My children walk to school. We have no concern for them. They are freer than in France”. His wife now works as educator in the city of Netanya, the “French Riviera” as it is called for its high number of immigrants from France.

Marc Fridman speaks of “a terrible sense of isolation and frustration after 2012. Only ten thousand people participated in the march for the Ozar HaTorah” school. The Jewish community of Toulouse then consisted of up to 20,000 people. Today only 10,000 Jews remain. Another bombing could be the end for one of the cradles of French Judaism.

Jérôme left the outskirts of Toulouse to settle in the suburbs of Tel Aviv with his wife and two children. “It was no longer France, where I was born. One day I asked myself what future I wanted to give to my children and I decided to go to Israel”. Despite the threat of terror attacks and the hostility of neighboring countries, Jérôme feels safer in Israel than in France. “You get used to living with sirens and shelters”.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Students Protest Charles Murray’s ‘Racism’ and ‘Classism’ at NYU They would be better served by engaging with scholarly ideas outside of their ideological bubble. By Paul Crookston

By on March 29th, 2017

Charles Murray was not met with riots when he showed up to speak at NYU last Friday, as he had been at Middlebury College a few weeks before. Still, his reception hardly served as a model for campus discourse. Security was beefed up, and his hosts, a student group affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, had to restrict access to the event. A small crowd showed up to protest Murray’s presence — and to hurl insults at attendees and the university itself.

In response to what occurred at Middlebury, the speech’s venue was moved to an underground room in NYU’s Torch Club, and tickets had to be reserved ahead of time, angering many who had hoped to gain admission in order to protest.

The protest was an unimpressive showing. Demonstrators numbered about 20 and brandished signs with such inane slogans as “No Eugenics on Campus — Fight Fascism.” They chanted about Murray but also directed opprobrium at NYU for permitting his visit. Pairing Murray’s alleged prejudice with that of the university, a chant of “How do you spell ‘classist’? N-Y-U!” rang out as I stood waiting to get through security, and many signs accused Murray of racism. Indeed, NYU’s Faculty of Color Caucus wrote a letter indicting Murray’s talk as “hate and fear under the guise of scholarship and free speech.”

The strongest condemnation of Murray focused on his supposed view of the poor as an underclass deserving of their situation. One student, Shirish Sarkar, told me: “Charles Murray is the latest in a long line of people that have been pushing this sort of eugenics-based poverty myth, where there’s a correlation between intelligence and poverty.” The Faculty of Color Caucus summarized Murray’s book Coming Apart, on which the talk was based, as “[blaming] poor whites for their own poverty.” Those of us who listened to what Murray had to say in his talk in fact heard him sharply reprove the out-of-touch elite that had smugly abandoned the working class and poor to their fate.

As Murray entered the Torch Club through a side door, flanked by security, his talk began with shouts of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” faintly echoing from above ground, outside of the restaurant. He referred to the hullabaloo only with an opening joke that it was all wasted on a talk that will make listeners think, “That’s it?”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Report: Sen. (Upchuck)Schumer Harassed Well-Connected Woman at NY Restaurant Because She Voted for Trump By Debra Heine

By on March 29th, 2017

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) allegedly “caused a scene” at an Upper East Side Manhattan restaurant Sunday night when he bawled out a well-known and well-connected woman because she voted for President Trump. “She voted for Trump!” he reportedly bellowed.

According to witnesses, Schumer continued the harassment after the woman and her husband left the restaurant, following them outside and yelling more insults.

The senator was dining with friends at Sette Mezzo when he confronted Joseph A. Califano Jr. — the former U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare under President Jimmy Carter — and his wife, Hilary, who were trying to enjoy a quiet dinner.

Onlookers said Schumer was incensed that Hilary — the daughter of William S. Paley, the founder and chairman of CBS — had voted for Trump, even though her husband, Joseph, is a well-known Democrat.

One witness said of the restaurant rant, “They are a highly respected couple, and Schumer made a scene, yelling, ‘She voted for Trump!’ The Califanos left the restaurant, but Schumer followed them outside.” On the sidewalk, Schumer carried on with his fantastical filibuster: “ ‘How could you vote for Trump? He’s a liar!’ He kept repeating, ‘He’s a liar!’ ”

Hilary confirmed the confrontation, telling Page Six, “Sen. Schumer was really rude . . . He’s our senator, and I don’t really like him. Yes, I voted for Trump. Schumer joined us outside and he told me Trump was a liar. I should have told him that Hillary Clinton was a liar, but I was so surprised I didn’t say anything.”

This isn’t the first time Senator Schumer has gotten emotional about President Trump. After Trump announced his immigration order back in January, Schumer held a press conference at which he called the order “mean spirited” and shed copious tears.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

France — Where an Age of Enlightenment Once Flourished, Turbidity Now Reigns Lt. Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.)

By on March 29th, 2017

Recent incidents in France are most telling about an Age of Enlightenment giving way, albeit centuries later, to an “Age of Turbidity.”

Seventeen/eighteenth century Europeans sparked the Age of Enlightenment. Mankind-motivated to move toward reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy and away from traditional orthodoxies such as religion and absolute monarchy-enjoyed tremendous benefits by doing so.

In France, particularly, challenges arose to the dogmas of the Catholic Church. Overcoming those challenges gave rise to many ideals we enjoy today such as liberty, progress, tolerance, constitutional government and separation of church and state.

Sadly, these ideals are now being lost in a new age-one of turbidity in which facts are hidden. As seen by this week’s attack in London, the Muslim perpetrator had been previously investigated over concerns about his “violent extremism”-more accurately known as “radical Islam.”

Originally credited with seeding acceptance for an enlightening age, France now irresponsibly sows seeds of disenlightenment-clouding individual cognitive thinking about the very ideals that made Western civilization and influence so great.

Take the case of two of France’ s Muslim cultural heroes-darlings of both the country’s leftist mainstream media and its Hollywood set. As popular news stories about Mehdi Meklat, a writer and documentary film producer, appeared in the French press, the U.S. mainstream media also portrayed him in a very positive light.

The Washington Post last year noted Meklat, at 23, was already a celebrity, among “France’s youngest public intellectuals” who sees no point in a university education, whose world begins where Paris ends, whose works reveal an “overarching intent: showing the world the complicated reality of the Paris suburbs where…(he was) born and raised.”

The public was led to believe Meklat effectively had integrated into French life, earning Western tolerance himself as one contributing to society. But, last February, his image was severely tarnished as it was exposed to the light of truth. An unidentified Facebook user shared some of his tweets over the past several years, revealing a much different person than the human rights activist portrayed by the media.

As for conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, Meklat wrote, “I am going to slit your throat Muslim-style.”

As for Jews, he called for Hitler’s return “to kill” them.

As for former Charlie Hebdo editor-in-chief Charb before he was killed in the January 2015 terrorist attack, he wanted to “rape” him by shoving “Lagulole knives up his…”

As for white people, “they must die as soon as possible.”

As for movie legend Brigitte Bardot, he desired to sodomize her with light bulbs.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

French Presidential Campaign: Part 1 by Nidra Poller

By on March 29th, 2017

Why should you be interested in the French presidential campaign? Because it might as well be going on next door to you. We are facing the same major challenges in a similar state of confusion. The differences are circumstantial, the stakes are the same. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Our freedom is on the line.

Besides, this cliffhanging French campaign is a fascinating mixture of Shakespear, Greek tragedy, soap opera, and courtly intrigues.

First, a brief summary of the overall situation: The incumbent Socialist president, François Hollande, didn’t dare run for reelection. His 5 year-term has been a disaster, the Socialist party is in a shambles, the winner of the (Belle Alliance Populaire) primary, Benoît Hamon, is a Kinder Surprise with goodies for all the small people paid for by the Big Bad Rich. He has no chance of getting to the 2nd round. ID: Socialist

The callow 38 year-old Emmanuel Macron, generally assumed to make it past the first round (April 23) to confront and defeat Marine Le Pen in the second round (May 7), is running on a vacuous Somewhat Right Somewhat Left platform. How did the fabulously unpopular François Hollande manage to place his alter ego in pole position while standing aside in studied absence as the cream of the Socialist party boards Macron’s cruise ship? ID: En Marche

François Fillon, who served for five years as Nicolas Sarkozy’s prime minister, came out of the Primaries (Right and Center-Right) with a strong mandate, upsetting the media’s favorite Alain Juppé, and polling above Macron and Le Pen. Then, out of the blue, Fillon was hit with a sensational smear campaign and a judicial ton of bricks that would have crushed a weaker constitution. The character assassination putsch against Fillon is the centerpiece of an extraordinarily dramatic campaign. It will be treated briefly below and more amply in Part 2 of this ongoing series. Fillon’s platform is built on a Thatcherite revolution aimed at releasing France from decades of stagnation and double digit unemployment, and a resolute combat against Islamic Totalitarianism at home and abroad. ID: Les Républicains.

And then there is Marine Le Pen. ID: Front National

The top issue on the list of voter preoccupations in February, whether expressed directly or indirectly, was Islam. They wanted to know where candidates stood on the question. Would it be sweet submission or tough resistance? Instead of the issue-based campaign they clearly wanted, voters have been dragged into the quicksand of moralizing purification-aimed at eliminating François Fillon-and thrown a lifesaver attached to the gossamer rope of the Little Prince Emmanuel Macron.

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