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Ivanka Trump makes another pilgrimage to Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave, praying for a repeat of 2016

October 26, 2020 By Ron Kampeas

(JTA) — Ivanka Trump visited the tomb of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as an election approaches that could oust her father from the presidency or give him another four years.

Smartphone video posted on social media captured President Donald Trump’s daughter emerging, masked, on Thursday night from the “ohel,” a modest structure in Queens where Schneerson is buried with his father-in-law. The structure is adjacent to a cemetery.

Trump had just completed his second debate with Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, in Tennessee.

Ivanka Trump was praying for her father’s reelection, according to Yeshiva World News, which did not give attribution for the claim. In 2016, she and her husband, Jared Kushner, visited the ohel to pray for her father’s election.

Ivanka Trump and Kushner are Orthodox Jews. Praying adjacent to the tomb of Schneerson, who died in 1994, is considered by many Jews to be especially powerful.

Ivanka Trump visits the tomb of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

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‘Thank you Rabbis,’ Trump tweets about a rereleased letter of support from 13 Orthodox leaders

October 26, 2020 By Philissa Cramer

(JTA) — “BREAKING,” tweeted Mishpacha, a magazine for Orthodox Jews, Saturday night about a letter signed by 13 leading Orthodox rabbis demonstrating support for President Donald Trump days before the presidential election.

In fact, the letter was not new. It had been written back in June, not to endorse Trump’s reelection but to thank him for designating religious services as essential at a time when many states had barred or dramatically curtailed gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mishpacha clarified the letter’s origin in a subsequent tweet, and after followers familiar with the matter criticized the way the the magazine had characterized the letter, Rabbi Moshe Margaretten weighed in with a tweet of his own.

“It was an honor to work on this unprecedented letter starting in June in thanks to @realDonaldTrump for announcing that religion is essential — it definitely is!” wrote Margaretten, an advocate for criminal justice reform whom Trump invited to light a menorah at a White House ceremony last year. “We worked months to gather signatures (wanted to gather even more) and it was recently delivered to the President.”

Trump — who often shares messages on Twitter that praise him — retweeted Margaretten’s post. “Thank you Rabbis!” he wrote Sunday afternoon.

The episode unfolded as Orthodox Jews in the New York City area rallied to demonstrate support for Trump’s reelection bid. A recent poll by Ami Magazine, another Orthodox publication, found that 83% of its readers said they planned to vote for the Republican candidate. Other polls have shown consistently that about three quarters of American Jews say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.

‘Thank you Rabbis,’ Trump tweets

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Contestant’s Nazi facial tattoos force British broadcaster to suspend woodworking competition

October 23, 2020 By David Ian Klein

The U.K.’s Sky network suspended its game show, “The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker,” pending an investigation, after viewers recognized several Neo-Nazi and white supremacist tattoos on the face of one its contestants in a promotional video.

WHAT THE FUCK, @HISTORYUK? I can see at least 5 recognised Nazi/white power tattoos on this guy’s face. Get him off the fucking TV right now. #antiracism https://t.co/cmEeWJY2Xb— Elizabeth Boyle (@thecelticist) October 20, 2020

Darren Lumsden, a wood joiner from Bristol, was set to appear this week on the Great British Baking Show-styled carpentry competition, until viewers pointed out that among his many tattoos were a sig rune, which were used as part of SS’s emblem, and the numbers 14, 88, 23 and 16. All are coded white supremacist symbols, according to the ADL.

The number 88 is a representation of the initials of the Nazi salute “Heil Hitler,” while 23 and 16 spell out the initials of the phrase “white power.” The number 14 stands for the 14 words of the white supremacist slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” All are commonly used in white supremacist circles.

Sky, which co-owns the History U.K. Channel that airs the show, originally defended Lumsden.

In a now-deleted tweet, they said that the tattoos “hold no political or ideological meaning whatsoever,” and that the number 88 signified the year 1988, the supposed date of his father’s death.

Anyway, here’s the original tweet they wrote to me that prompted this, before they deleted everything. “No political or ideological meaning whatsoever.” pic.twitter.com/ztzQFtUNhx— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) October 20, 2020

Except Lumsden’s father is still very much alive.

“I’m here aren’t I? I’m alive and kicking” Trevor Lumsden, Darren’s father said, when reporters from the Daily Mail showed up at his home in Bristol. Trevor Lumsden said that he had not seen his son for “some years.”

Since the revelation, Sky deleted the tweets defending Lumsden and removed the promo for the episode featuring him.

“While we investigate the nature, and meaning, of Darren’s tattoos, we have removed the video featuring him from our social media pages, and will not be broadcasting any episodes of The Chop: Britain’s Top Woodworker until we have concluded that investigation,” says a statement on the show’s site.

Nazi tats spur British broadcaster to suspend show

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GOP candidate who called Hitler ‘the Fuhrer’ attacks opponent as enemy of white men

October 23, 2020 By Arno Rosenfeld

Republican Madison Cawthorn, who is running for a North Carolina House seat, put up an attack website this week accusing his Jewish opponent Moe Davis of being backed by a supporter who “aims to ruin white males running for office.”

Both Cawthorn and Davis are white men, but the website claims that a journalist named Tom Fielder, who has written favorably about Davis, “quit his academia job in Boston to work for non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males running for office.”

The smear was first reported by The Bulwark.

The web page in question is part of MoeTaxes.com, which is sponsored by the Cawthorn campaign, and has since been edited. It now claims that Fielder is simply “an unapologetic defender of left-wing identity politics.”

The page also features an edited photo of Davis as a marionette puppet.

“Revelations about Madison Cawthorn’s blatantly racist comment come days after over 150 former classmates at Patrick Henry College — more than half the entire student body during his time there — signed a letter and posted it online calling Mr. Cawthorn a ‘sexual predator’ who lied and vandalized property while attending the college for a little over a semester in 2016-17,” Davis said in a statement to The New York Times.

Cawthorn told The Times that the page’s original language was poorly worded.

“The syntax of our language was unclear and unfairly implied I was criticizing Cory Booker,” Cawthorn said. “I have condemned racism and identity politics throughout my campaign including during my convention speech when I highlighted [Martin Luther King Jr.’s] vision for equality.”

Cawthorn previously drew the ire of Jewish voters in his district after he shared photos from a visit to Adolf Hitler’s vacation home. In a caption on the photo, which was shared on social media, Cawthorn referred to Hitler as “the Fuhrer” and said the trip had been on his “bucket list.” It also called Hitler a “supreme evil.”

Madison Cawthorn attacks opponent as enemy of white men

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Sudan will normalize ties with Israel, Trump announces

October 23, 2020 By Ron Kampeas

Sudan will become the third Arab country in the past two months to normalize ties with Israel, continuing the trend of Arab states’ willingness to advance ties with the Jewish state even without a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

President Donald Trump announced the agreement on Friday. According to a joint statement released by Israel, Sudan and the U.S., the two countries will “end the state of belligerence between their nations.”

The statement also noted that the countries will “begin economic and trade relations, with an initial focus on agriculture.” In the coming weeks, the statement says, they will meet to discuss “agriculture technology, aviation, migration issues and other areas.”

“The Arab-Israeli conflict is moving towards an end,” said Brian Hook, the top State Department official who helped broker the deal, on Friday at an Oval Office presentation.

Sudan has been ruled by a Sovereignty Council, led by military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, since a military coup last year deposed longtime Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was subsequently convicted of corruption. He presided over the country during the Darfur ethnic conflict, which involved what the International Criminal Court has deemed war crimes by the Sudanese government.

Earlier in the day, Trump informed Congress of his intent to remove Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, which reportedly is part of the agreement.

Sudan will get new leadership in 2022, when the state’s agreed-upon transition period ends. The north African country’s state religion was Islam until earlier this year.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have in recent weeks launched fast tracks to open up diplomatic affairs, trade and tourism with Israel, but Sudan is especially significant because it is by far the largest of the three countries, in land mass and in population. It is also symbolically significant because its capital, Khartoum, is where the Arab League met in 1967 after the Six-Day War and issued its “three no’s” to reject any engagement with Israel whatsoever and to continue the state of war.

Like the UAE and Bahrain, Sudan has not been in a war with Israel and has over the years enjoyed a degree of secret ties with the country. In 1984, the Sudanese authorities assisted in an airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in February met openly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Uganda.

There are also thousands of refugees from Sudan’s military conflicts living in Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Aug. 24, 2020. (Debbie Hill/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump also said at the Oval Office event on Friday that the process of solidifying the deals with the UAE and Bahrain “is moving along.” He said he is in talks with the United Arab Emirates to sell the country advanced F-35 stealth combat jets.

Israel objects to the sale, as do Democrats in Congress.

Bahrain signed a number of cooperative agreements with Israel this week and the UAE and Israel agreeing to travel between the countries without a pre-arranged visa. A government-linked Bahraini institute on Thursday signed an agreement with the U.S. State Department to combat anti-Semitism and delegitimization of Israel.

Sudan will normalize ties with Israel, Trump announces

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