Jacobs' self-declared mission is "breaking the silence" about Islamic extremism and unmasking its American practitioners and enablers, many of them centered in Boston. He currently heads Americans for Peace and Tolerance, an interfaith group he founded in 2008.
Charles Jacobs was born in Newark, New Jersey. He was active in the civil rights movement as a teenager, and in 1963, attended Martin Luther King's March on Washington. He graduated from Rutgers University in 1966 and earned a Doctor of Education degree (Ed.D.) in social policy from Harvard University in 1988.
Throughout the following decade 90’s, he pursued a career as an international management consultant, working as a publicist, advertising campaign promoter, and speech writer for several organizations and became a member of public relations firm and speakers' bureau Benador Associates. Benador Associates is a public relations firm that promotes conservative writers and speakers dealing with U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
He's been widely published, including in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Jerusalem Post, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. He has appeared on local and national television and radio, including NBC, CBS, NPR, CNN and PBS. He currently writes a column for the Boston Jewish Advocate.
Jacobs has appeared on CBS's This Morning, ABC's World News Tonight, and National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. In 2007, he was named by the Forward newspaper as one of America's 50 top Jewish leaders.
In 1988, Jacobs co-founded with Andrea Levin, the Boston branch of CAMERA – Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America -- which evolved into the organization’s national office. Today CAMERA is the preeminent Middle East media watchdog that responds to media bias against Israel in the United States.
American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG)
Charles Jacobs has been active in the fight against modern day slavery. In July of 1994, he co-authored The New York Times article that broke the silence about slavery in Sudan and North Africa. The widespread response inspired Jacobs to launch the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG), with African human rights activists Mohamed Athie, a Mauritania Muslim, and David Chand, a Sudanese Christian of Sudan. AASG was a new abolitionist movement in the United States dedicated to eradicating modern-day human bondage and to promoting a non-politicized, bias-free human rights community.
AASG brought international attention to the enslavement of tens of thousands of mostly-Christian Africans in Sudan by militias armed by the radical Islamic regime in Khartoum. Under the leadership of Jacobs the AASG raised funds that liberated tens of thousands of Sudanese slaves and played an instrumental role in 2007 criminalization of slavery in Mauritania.
He was appointed director of The Sudan Campaign in May 2000, serving as one of its four co-chairmen since 2004, a coalition calling for an end to slavery in Sudan. As the Chairman of The Sudan Campaign, Jacobs helped build an unlikely left-right coalition that eventually persuaded the US Government to stop the genocide and slave raids in Sudan (1956-2005).
On September 18, 2000, in recognition of his work for the American Anti-Slavery Group and as its president, Jacobs was presented with the first-ever Boston Freedom Award by Martin Luther King’s widow, Coretta Scott King and Thomas Menino, the Mayor of Boston. On September 28, 2000, he testified to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, along with three survivors of slavery from around the world.
In April 2001 (Passover), Jacobs flew into South Sudan on a rescue mission that, under the guidance of the Zurich-based rights group, Christian Solidarity International (CSI), helped liberate over 2,900 enslaved women and children."
Jacobs has testified before Congress numerous times and on October 21, 2002, was invited to the White House signing of the Sudan Peace Act, where he spoke with President Bush. AASG was instrumental in to influencing the President to change US policy on Sudan and enforcing a North-South Peace treaty which ended the slave raids.
In January of 2011, Jacobs returned to South Sudan to witness the historic referendum on independence. He also documented two slave liberation missions conducted by CSI.
David Project
In the summer of 2002 Jacobs co-founded - with Avi Goldwasswer - The David Project which promotes a fair and honest discussion of the Middle East conflict, and which evolved into a Center for Jewish Leadership.
The David Project currently educates thousands of pro-Israel students each year, preparing them for the rhetorical battles on the nation’s campuses. The college students are trained through dynamic educational seminars, workshops, and curricula to advocate for Israel and fight back against the demonization of Israel on campus.
The David Project organized campus Fellows Seminars - four-day Israel education, activism and leadership seminars, and sends regional campus coordinators to work closely with students to develop and implement effective strategies for Israel activism.
Curricula are developed on Israel for over 100 Jewish high schools and middle schools. The subjects include: "The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Educating Ourselves, Educating Others" curriculum for Jewish high school students,” "Jewish Identity Curriculum" for Jewish middle schools, and "The Forgotten Refugees" curriculum for Jewish high schools and middle schools.
The David Project and IsraTV produced the documentary film "The Forgotten Refugees: Jewish exodus from Arab countries 1947-1972." The film explored the history and destruction of Middle Eastern Jewish communities, some of which had existed for over 2,500 years.
In 2004, another documentary film was produced entitled "Columbia Unbecoming". The purpose of the film was to respond to Columbia University's Middle East studies program that, according to the organization, prevented "free and open [academic] inquiry." The film featured the testimony of "students charging that they were intimidated and harassed by professors.”
The contents of the film spurred Columbia's President Lee Bollinger to create an ad hoc faculty committee in order to address student charges "that they were being intimidated by faculty members and being excluded from participating fully in classroom discussions because of their views." While the committee's findings did not lead to any broad-based change in university policy, Columbia Professor Joseph Massad was criticized for inappropriate classroom conduct in an incident in which he reportedly yelled at a student, "If you're going to deny the atrocities being committed against Palestinians, then you can get out of my classroom!"
The David Project was instrumental in pressuring Harvard University to reject funds from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, ruler of the United Arab Emirates, who funded and lent his name to an anti-American, anti-Semitic think-tank based in Abu Dhabi. The campaign was led by The David Project's Rachel Fish and her student supporters. Through her activist work, Rachel Fish was named one of the "Forward Fifty," a list of the 50 most influential Jews in America, in 2003.
In July 2008, Jacobs resigned as President of the David Project "in order to focus on a new initiative in support of the Jewish community.” In July 2010 the David Project hired David Bernstein, from the American Jewish Committee, as executive director. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency described this as a "continuing bid to transition from campus rabble rousers to more mainstream educators." Charles Jacobs, opposed this change in direction, writing "It was precisely the failure of Jewish mainstream organizations on America’s campuses that inspired the David Project’s birth."
Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT)
In September of 2008, Charles Jacobs found Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT)-- with Boston College political science professor Dr. Dennis Hale (an Episcopal lay eucharistic minister, and the former Chairman of the BC Political Science Department), and Islamic scholar Sheikh Dr. Ahmed Subhy Mansour, all of whom serve on its Board of Directors.
APT’s stated purpose is to "promote peaceful coexistence in an ethnically diverse America by educating the American public about the need for a moderate political leadership that supports tolerance and core American values in communities across the nation." Specifically, APT works to expose and challenge Radical Islamic organizations and to support moderate Muslims in America.
Roxbury Crossings mosque controversy
Americans for Peace and Tolerance has been a primary critic of the new $15.6 million mosque in Roxbury Crossings, known as the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, which APT asserts is led by extremist leaders and contributors. The ISB Cultural Center is the largest Islamic complex in New England.
The building project has been surrounded by controversy. The purchase of the land valued at over $2,000,000 to the Islamic Society in return for only $175,000 in funds, as well as the dual role of Boston Redevelopment Authority Deputy Directory Mohammad Ali-Salaam as official overseeing and managing the sale on behalf of the city and principle fundraiser for the Islamic Society of Boston.
(Picture above is of Imam Abdullah Faaruuq (left) and Charles Jacobs)
The Islamic Society of Boston was founded in 1981 by Muslim students as a consolidation of Muslim Students' Associations. ISB offers daily, weekly and annual programs for Muslims including Arabic and English classes on religious and secular topics as well as a religious school for children and holiday programs. The society also organizes trips and summer camps for children and classes on Islam for non-Muslims.
The ISB leaders initially handed off some of the Roxbury Crossings mosque project's operational functions, and then the fundraising, and finally the entire project — with Muslim American Society (MAS-Boston) officially taking over in June 2007.
The Muslim American Society was created by Muslim Brotherhood members in the U.S. who decided to have a public face. Both Mohammed Mahdi Akef, now the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide, and Ahmed Elkadi, leader of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, were pivotal in the founding of the MAS. The new organization instructed its members to evade questions about the group's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and to define jihad as a "divine legal right" of Muslims to be used for defense and the spread of Islam. federal prosecutors have called MAS “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.”
Jacobs and Hale wrote an op-ed article that The Boston Globe printed on July 5, 2009, in which they said that the mosque was "paid for largely by the Saudis, and run by what federal authorities describe as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood," and that "it is way past time for sensible citizens to demand answers to questions about the leaders of the new Islamic Center in Roxbury."
These leaders include:
Walid Fitahi, trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston until March 7, 2007 and was a onetime director of outreach for the religious society. Fitaihi is a member of a wealthy Saudi family that made its fortune in jewelry and shopping centers and there have been speculations that he was heavily involved in obtaining the financing for the ISB mosque construction from Saudi Arabian sources.
Indeed, the ISB has acknowledged receiving at least $1 million in financing from the Islamic Development Bank in late 2005, report Charles A. Radin and Stephen Kurkjian of the Boston Globe. The bank, based in Saudi Arabia, is owned primarily by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Libya, Iran, and Egypt.
Walid Fitaihi has claimed that according to the Koran, Jews are "killers of the Prophets,'' responsible for the "oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah.'' His writings in both the Arabic and the English translations were examined by Ahmed H. al-Rahim, an instructor of Arabic language and literature at Harvard University and chairman of the American Islamic Congress who wrote a letter to the Boston Globe stating that he found them to be virulently anti-Semitic. It is not a question of "errors in translation from Arabic to English" as Dr. Fitaihi claims.
Shortly after his resignation, MAS-Boston put Walid Ahmad Fitaihi back on the mosque board of trustees. Fitaihi donated $250,000 to the mosque, for a matching-fund drive. ISB spokesman Bilal Kaleem confirms that Fitaihi was the donor, and that he remains active in the mosque development. "It's not like we're hiding that," says Kaleem. Fitahi was chosen to read Koranic passages at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Abdurahman Alamoudi was the The Islamic Society of Boston's founder in 1982. During the 1990s, he was one of Washington's most accomplished and high-profile Islamist figures. However, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, he had "a close relationship" with Al-Qaeda" and raised $1 million for it in 2003. He is now a prisoner serving a 23-year sentence after having pleaded guilty to terrorism-related crimes and admitted plotting with Muammar Qaddafi to assassinate then-Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi is a founding trustee of the ISB but is known as the "Theologian of Terror." He was nominated to be an original trustee of New England's largest mosque, despite his radical teachings of hatred for Jews, women and gays. When he was a trustee of the Boston mosque, its website featured teachings on how to beat one's wife.
It turns out that Qaradawi is the spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the man whose fatwas allow martyrdom against U.S. troops and Israeli civilians. Qaradawi preaches that the Holocaust was a "divine punishment of the Jews." He publicly prayed for the opportunity to personally kill a Jew, even in a wheelchair: "I will shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah." On videotape, Qaradawi has said that homosexuals should be killed.
http://peaceandtolerance.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=140:the-boston-connection-to-egypts-muslim-brotherhood&catid=7:our-statements&Itemid=39
This Egyptian Islamist was outspoken in his backing for Hamas which led the Department of State to bar him from entering the United States in 1999. Unable to bring him to the United States, the Boston mosque featured a video address by Qaradawi at a major fundraiser for its construction at the Boston Sheraton.
Since then Qaradawi has preached that Muslims should acquire nuclear weapons "to terrorize their enemies," and ruled that Muslims are permitted to kill Israeli women because they serve in the army.
While the leaders of the Boston mosque deny that Qaradawi continues to have any relationship with the mosque, he is in fact a leader of a major subsidiary of the Muslim American Society (MAS) - the organization that presently runs the mosque. Qaradawi heads the Islamic American University, which the MAS claims is one of its most important projects and which offers classes at the Boston mosque. The relationship between MAS and Qaradawi is not surprising, given that federal prosecutors have labeled the MAS as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.
Osama M. Kandil, the Islamic Society of Boston's leader for over a decade. Turns out that in addition being a former instructor at Harvard Medical School and the founder and chairman of an Egyptian pharmaceutical company, Biopharm Group, he is also associated with the notorious Safa group of Saudi businesses and "charities" headquartered outside Washington, D.C. and was a founding director of the Muslim Arab Youth Association, one of the most radical Islamist organizations in the United States.
School Scandal at the Roxbury Mosque
Sixth graders from Wellesley Middle School took a trip to the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury in May 2010 to learn about the history and culture of Islam as part of their Social Studies curriculum: to visit the mosque – to study its architecture and to give the students “an authentic experience” by observing Islamic religion first hand.
As time came for the Muslim mid-day prayer, the girls were separated from the boys, and the boys were asked to join the Muslim adults in prayer. The boys were flanked by mosque members. One of them was Jewish, according to the chaperone.
Five boys from the class stood with the Muslim men at the mosque and then appear to have taken part in the prayer, bowing and touching their foreheads to the floor in the traditional Muslim prayer ritual, according to a video shot by a parent chaperone.
Rabbi Eric Gurvis
Charles Jacobs wrote on June 7, 2010 about the May 22, 2010 visit to the Muslim American Society’s (MAS) Saudi-funded Roxbury mega-mosque by Governor Deval Laurdine Patrick. During the visit, a $50,000 check was handed over to a member of the state Attorney General’s office to fund a program to train Massachusetts police officers in “sensitivity.”
Jacobs continued by pointing out the presence of Rabbi Eric Gurvis at the visit and wrote: “And, again as if on cue, prominently noted and photographed was kippah-wearing Rabbi Eric Gurvis, hugging Bilal Kaleem, who heads MAS. Why does Rabbi Gurvis refuse to acknowledge what he has been shown in official documents: that the MAS is a Muslim Brotherhood organization; that the mosque was funded by Wahabbi Saudis, not known to fund moderate mosques; and that the MAS/ISB leaders have invited defamers of Jews and Christians to “educate” the historically moderate Boston Muslim community?
(Picture above is of Rabbi Eric Gurvis embracing Executive Director of MAS Bilal Kaleem)
Rabbi Gurvis knows all this. Maybe for him it’s “my Muslim friends, right or wrong.” Or maybe the rabbi’s need to demonstrate his moral superiority by caring for the “other” – no matter how radical or extreme – trumps any foreseeable consequences.
Seventy of Gurvis' colleagues -- most of them on the liberal left-wing of the Reform and Reconstructionist movements -- counterattacked with an open letter, printed in the same local paper that Jacobs' column originally appeared in. The Rabbis call the Jacobs column a "vicious, personal attack." Their letter is devoid of any response whatsoever to the substantive matters that Charles Jacobs exposed.
They write: We write in defense of our colleague Rabbi Eric Gurvis. Rabbi Gurvis leads Temple Shalom of Newton, is the past president of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis, Boston Area Reform Rabbis and currently serves as the president of the Newton Clergy Association. He is a distinguished teacher and respected community leader.
We were shocked and appalled by the vicious, personal attack written by Charles Jacobs.
We denounce this attack and call upon Mr. Jacobs to discontinue his destructive campaign against Boston's Muslim community, which is based on innuendo, half-truths and unproven conspiracy theories. We call upon members of our community to reject the dangerous politics of division that Mr. Jacobs fosters.
During these difficult times, Rabbi Gurvis, along with other courageous religious leaders, is attempting to foster a different kind of politics. We support his commitment to interfaith dialogue and cooperation. We stand together in our commitment to a community in which neighbors seek to know one another and join together for the common good.
Jacobs issued his own response through APT.
In response to our video sounding the alarm about a Muslim American Society (MAS) imam who told followers to "pick up the gun and the sword," as well as to our criticism of Rabbi Eric Gurvis for embracing the MAS leadership, a group of seventy New England rabbis published a letter denouncing me in the Jewish Advocate.
The letter ignored every concern we raised about the MAS - its Saudi funders, its extremist leaders, its connections to terror and hate speakers. Instead, the rabbis who wrote it, accused me falsely of waging a campaign to defame Boston's Muslim community.
These rabbis should have known, with minimal fact-checking, that I have been consistent in my positions: I believe the radical leaders of MAS Boston are first and foremost a threat to Boston's historically moderate Muslim community. The best way to fight this threat is to support the true moderates and reformers of Islam. This is a major component of the Americans for Peace and Tolerance mission and activity. Yet the rabbis irresponsibly claimed that I am defaming all Boston Muslims.
Rev. Fumio Taku, President Christians and Jews United for Israel also gave his reaction to the Rabbis letter. He wrote: Jacob's main point was to bring to light the danger of closing one's eyes to these specific Roxbury Mosque leaders' documented association with, and support of, global radical Islamic terror groups and indicted and jailed terrorists, such as Aafia Siddiqui.
Jacobs does not base his assertions on innuendo or half-truths. Instead he has made available numerous FBI and court documents, public information, and videos, which everyone should read before criticizing Jacobs.
America is under attack both from within and without by radical Islamic terrorists whose goal is to destroy our lives and our freedom. We mustn't falsely accuse or limit freedoms of any Muslim citizen simply because he/she is Muslim. But every political and community leader - indeed every citizen - must be on the alert for those who are found to support acts of terror and anti-Semitism, and be careful not to embrace them as our co-laborer of peace. Nor should we accept them as speaking on behalf of truly moderate Muslims who support every citizen's security and liberty under the US Constitution.
Failure of the national Jewish American leadership to deal with the threat of radical Islam
Charles Jacobs, in an interview that first appeared in Frontpage Magazine on March 1st, 2010, accused the national Jewish American leadership of a failure to deal with the threats of our time. These leaders will not explain how America’s left-liberals are abandoning Israel. They will not tell their constituencies what they know about Muslim student groups on campus building a base against Jews. They will not expose the radical Muslim leaders in our midst who they know are successfully portraying themselves as moderates and inviting anti-Semitic speakers.
Jacobs said: Given our small size and our sizeable foes, the Jewish community has always valued unity. Unity is important, but I reluctantly decided to become critical of some of our leaders because of the seriousness and urgency of the current situation. A few months back, I decided to break what is in effect a gentlemen's agreement among Jewish leaders not to criticize each other in public.
At the end of an op-ed about Wafa Sultan, the courageous Muslim reformer who risks her life daily to fight real threats posed by Islamists to us all, I chided ADL for its relative silence on this, the greatest threat to Jews today. When Abe Foxman responded with a letter to my home town Jewish paper attacking me, I began a series of articles on the ADL's failure, and I proposed a list of key principles for beginning a serious effort against Islamic anti-Semitism.
After the Holocaust, it became no longer acceptable for most in Western societies to hate Jews for the old reasons - either because of our religion (as "Christ-killers") or because of our race - the Nazis taught we were racial vermin. Instead Jews were coming to be hated in the West because of their state. As you know, this animus against Israel comes mostly from the Left.
At the same time, Radical Islam, with its virulent, theologically based anti-Semitism, surges throughout the Muslim realm. So Jews now are in a New Time, a daunting situation that can be described as a perfect storm. Unexpectedly, we became targeted simultaneously by two powerful world currents - anti-Israel Leftist "Palestinianism" and Islamic anti-Semitism.
Unfortunately, Jewish leaders and their organizations, for the most part, have not responded effectively to this new situation. For years I have been speaking with top Jewish leaders behind the scenes about this, urging them to call the Jews to order, to announce and explain the "New Time" and the new threat profile, and to create strategies to effectively respond. It was extremely frustrating.
There is a "gentlemen's agreement" between Jewish leaders about not being critical of other Jewish leaders. There are very practical economic, social and political reasons that Jews who head organizations are essentially blocked from issuing even very responsible and important criticisms of other Jewish leaders who they think are doing foolish or even harmful things. And you run the risk that there are many Jews, who while they might agree with the criticism, still don't like "our dirty laundry" out in the public.
This is a structural problem, harmful to Jewish interests because this code of silence, this Jewish omerta (Mafia code of silence) blocks public discussion of Jewry's most urgent and serious matters: where is our leadership is taking us, how are our limited communal resources allocated?
The Anti-Defamation League
Jacobs centered his attention on the lack of a credible defense against radical Islam by the Anti Defamation League (ADL). In November 06, 2011 Jacobs wrote that the ADL is Missing in Action. ADL is the biggest Jewish agency with a mission to defend the Jews against anti-Semitism, it raises $55 million a year. Abe Foxman, the head of ADL, has been at its helm for forty years. But it has not devoted enough resources to combating radical Islam's threat to World Jewry. We sorely need the ADL … to do its job
Ilya Feoktistov and Charles Jacobs did an Analysis of the Anti-Defamation League’s Press Release Archive as a Measure of the Organization’s Priorities. This study analyzed the 4269 ADL press releases archived on the ADL’s website as of February 3, 2010, which span 15 years (1995-2010). Major findings include:
1. Far from being its primary focus, Islamic extremism is near the bottom of ADL’s concerns, with only 1.3% of its releases being devoted to the issue. Only 7.7% of the press releases issued over the past 15 years focused on Islamic extremism (1.3%), Arab anti-Semitism (1.3%), and terrorism (5.0%).
2. The fraction contributed by ADL press releases on three topics related to Islamic extremism: international terrorism – 3.8%, domestic terrorism – 1.3%, and Arab anti-Semitism – 1.3% still add the total up to only 7.7% of ADL’s press releases between 1995 and 2009.
The specific “Islamic extremism” category (excluding terrorism and Arab anti-Semitism) was then further analyzed. The results were surprising: Out of the total 56 releases devoted to Islamic extremism put out by the ADL over this 15-year period, 22 were issued in 1996 alone. Yet from this peak, the ADL’s focus on Islamic extremism precipitously dropped off in the following years. In fact the ADL has only issued 13 press releases devoted to Islamic extremism since September 11th, 2001 (9/11), barely half the number it issued in 1996 alone.
3. A preliminary scan of the press releases suggests that the Islamic theological sources of hatred for Jews expressed in Arab anti-Semitism are mostly left undiscussed by the ADL.
Indeed Foxman spoke about the threat of Islamic extremism on October 27, 2006. He said: Today I want to speak about another, greater threat to us – to democracy, to America, to the State of Israel and Jewish people, indeed to the world – the threat of Islamic extremism.
This threat is especially dangerous because its roots are in religion, thus there is no way to reason with it, as we, the Jewish people, know too well from our history. It is unquestionably a real threat to the Jewish people, taking the ideology of hatred and adding the reality of suicide terrorism and the even more terrifying, weapons of mass destruction.
Jacobs concludes: While claiming that it sees Islamic extremism as the biggest threat to World Jewry, ADL addressed that threat, along with terrorism and Arab anti-Semitism, in only 7.7% of its press releases. This consititutes an incredibly tiny focus on what Abraham Foxman has insisted is, “the highest priority for ADL.”
The ADL seems to exclude from its efforts any examination of Islamic canon and of the historical religious oppression of Jews as dhimmis in the Islamic world. This issue deserves a closer look. It is also noteworthy that so much of the ADL’s organizational focus on Israel has been diverted to promoting left-of-center causes.
Michigan Farmington District
Charles Jacobs found another reason to criticize the Anti-Defamation League on December 6, 2011 because of its actions regarding the sale of a closed public school building at Michigan’s Farmington public schools, a district in the most affluent county in the state, not far from Dearborn and Detroit.
A shuttered public school sold in a no-bid contract to a private buyer after officials told other interested buyers the building was not up for sale. It turns out, however, that the new owner plans to turn the school into a mosque. And that among the buyers who were turned away was a religious Jewish school. The Islamic Cultural Association of Michigan (ICA) – the organization that got the inside deal – is affiliated with the North American Islamic Trust – which is, according to federal authorities, a Muslim Brotherhood front.
The Anti-Defamation League – the nation’s largest Jewish defense organization – did nothing for the Jewish school, but is defending the mosque deal. Serious suspicions arose about the possible of public corruption in the sale but In support of the deal were Betsy Kellman, ADL’s Michigan director, and Robert Cohen, executive director of the Detroit Jewish Community Relations Council. They accused Farmington residents of having “strong anti-Muslim feelings” and “making generalizations about Muslims.”
They said nothing about the proposed mosque’s radical links or its likely animus toward their own Jewish constituents. They said nothing about the board’s barring the Jewish school from buying the property. Foxman said that his organization feels it must fight “Islamophobia” – so that the Muslim community “will stand with us.” Even if this were not as naively delusional as it sounds, why does opposing some presumed anti- Muslim bias require the ADL to support radical Muslim groups
Program to confront the New Time anti-Semitism
Jacobs sets forth a 4-point program to confront the New Time anti-Semitism.
1. The first and most important thing is a Wake-Up Call. World Jewry needs to be educated about the threat. Most Jewish establishment leaders have failed to mobilize a response. A new kind of leadership must emerge and rally the people, a leadership that is willing to speak out honestly.
2. Develop Alliances. Islamic anti- Semitism forms part of a more general attack on the West. Therefore Jews have potential allies around the world who - out of their own self-interest - will join them in this effort.
3. Analysis of religious texts and teachings. Jews will have to confront, study and speak about the theological anti- Semitism embedded in Muslim holy books. (The ADL flees from this task: It criticizes Jew-hatred in the Arab media without reference to the Islamic sources.)
4. Activism on behalf of the community. Jewish activists seem to prefer almost every cause in the world, except what is in their own community's interest. These talented people need to be enlisted - to sponsor conferences on Islamic anti-Semitism and Islamist penetration of American society; to expose the Saudi lobby and its impact on silencing scrutiny of anything Islamic; to lobby our elected officials about the dangers facing the country.
Further Reading:
Rachel Fish fights the radical Islamization of University Middle East Studies Programs in America
