Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The ongoing saga of Debbie Almontaser’s ritual immolation on the altar of Jewish wingnuttery continues as she filed a lawsuit in federal court today seeking reinstatement as principal of the Khalil Gibran Academy, the nation’s first public school dedicated to teaching Arab culture.

You’ll recall that the New York Post, New York Sun, Stop the Madrassa and Campus Watch crowd were all baying for Almontaser’s blood and succeeded in railroading her into resigning from her job as founding principal. Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein were willing participants in this charade though they perhaps had to be coaxed into axing Debbie.

A journalist friend of mine who attended the rally for her in front of the courthouse wrote:

Jews, Muslims, blacks, unionists came out for her. The Jews included Rabbi Rollie Matalon of B’nai Jeshurun, Michael Feinberg of something called Interfaith-Labor Alliance.

The NY Times quotes Rabbi Matalon’s affadavit filed in Almontaser’s support:

It was … particularly gratifying that a group of my colleagues signed a letter to the mayor and to the chancellor expressing our view that those who had attacked Ms. Almontaser did not represent the views of the mainstream Jewish community. … There are regrettable antecedents to the litmus test to which the press and the DOE subjected Ms. Almontaser, most notably in the regularity with which African-Americans are asked to denounce outspoken members of their community. The idea that there is only one acceptable view on issues of public concern is not only at odds with our constitutional guarantees, but is a perversion of the Jewish tradition of vigorous debate and discussion on all questions of importance to our people. … I hope that this court will remedy the great wrong that has been done to [Ms. Almontaser].

It’s important to note what was lacking. In the past, I’ve derided the organized Jewish community for permitting whackjobs like Stop the Madrassa to fill the vacuum and represent the Jewish community’s voice on this issue. New York’s Jewish leadership (Abe Foxman, David Harris, John Ruskay, etc.) has been strangely silent. There WAS one such figure though who until now had spoken out on Almontaser’s behalf, Rabbi Michael Paley, rabbi in residence for the New York UJA-Federation. Paley was quoted in Jewish Week and other publications speaking on her behalf and signed a petition for her published online as recently as September 30th. My journalist friend notes that Rabbi Paley was strangely absent today. I wonder why. Did someone tell him not to come?

And does one begin to notice a pattern here with the recent withdrawal, purportedly under donor pressure, of UJA-Federation sponsorship of the Other Israel Film Festival, which was dedicated to Israeli Arab cinema? Why haven’t the Forward, Jewish Week or JTA covered that story? Is there the acrid smell of Islamophobia wafting over UJA-Federation? If so, where is its source? Staff? Donors? Which specific individuals? Best to air out this foul odor in a public setting and let in some fresh air. Then maybe the Islamophobes will retreat back to their fear-filled lairs where they belong.

And it’s about time too as Haaretz reports:

U.S. Rabbi Michael Feinberg defended a planned Arab school in New York on Monday…

Addressing a rally in front of the New York Department of Education, Rabbi Feinberg called on elected officials to come forward in support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, which is scheduled to open on September 4.

Rabbi Feinberg called the virulent Internet campaign against the school “the lowest of McCarthyite tactics.”

Debbie Almontaser: burned at stake by NY Post, Campus Watch and local Islamophobes (Diane Bondareff/AP)

Yesterday, I wrote about Larry Cohler Esses terrific reportage on the Debbie Almontaser ‘witch-burning’ incident instigated by Daniel Pipes’ Campus Watch gang. I said yesterday that it was a shande that the Jewish community has let anti-Arab demagogues like Campus Watch take the lead on this issue. Despite the fact that Almontaser was a committed ally of the ADL, having gone through inter-faith training with them, no one from that group came to her aid during the Intifada incident. They let her twist in the wind.

To be fair, Cohler-Esses notes that Rabbi Michael Paley, Judaic consultant at the Jewish Federation (and someone I knew when he was a college student at Brandeis) has also come to the school’s defense (his daughter is an intern there). But why is he the only Federation official speaking out in support?

And the politicians were equally callow. Mayor Bloomberg expressed tepid support and said she made the right decision in resigning. Joel Klein, schools chancellor said barely anything. The teachers union president, to which Almontaser had belonged when she as a teacher before she was named principal, betrayed her and sealed her fate by denouncing her.

We must remember what happens when good people stand by and do nothing as victims’ reputations and careers are trashed. We may be judged as a society by what we did and what we refused to do in situations like this.

A local journalist tells me that left anti-Semitic elements may have entered the fray on behalf of the school. I replied to him:

When a community’s leaders leave the field of battle to the right-wing crazies, well then crazy things will happen. When people see the mayor, chancellor & teachers union president abandon someone like Almontaser, then the left extremist fruitcakes see their chance to fill the vacuum. The ADL & Federation are also to blame for taking a powder on this.

Leaders are meant to lead. When they don’t, others who are less worthy will.

Daniel Pipes: Let’s be ‘overt’ in our Arab racism

Larry Cohler-Esses proves once again in Jewish Week why he is one of the best Jewish journalism investigative reporters in America with his expose of what I call the Jewish Jihad against Debbie Almontaser. She was the founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, scheduled to open this fall as the first New York public school emphasizing Arabic language and culture. You may recall a New York Times article a few weeks ago describing her self-immolation after a New York Post interview in which she did not sufficiently denounce a T-shirt a reporter had asked her about which contained the phrase “Intifada-NYC.” Here is how Larry describes the interview:

At the very end of the interview, Almontaser told one of these sources [Cohler-Esses' informant], [New York Post reporter] Bennett, without bringing up the t-shirts, asked her almost incidentally what the word “intifada” meant. She consulted an Arabic dictionary and told him:

‘The word basically means ’shaking off.’ That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic.”

Bennett then told her about the t-shirts, adding that they were produced by a group that shares space with another group on whose board she sits. She replied: ‘I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas. I don’t believe the intention is to have any of that kind of [violence] in New York City. I think it’s pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society . . . and shaking off oppression.’

This is a perfect Frontpagemagazine-style guilt by association ploy. Almontaser is responsible in some way and must explain to the reporter why a group with which she has no direct association (it merely rented space with another non-profit on whose board she sits) has a T-shirt using the word “intifada.” She should’ve told the guy to shine it on. Instead, she attempted to actually tell him the meaning of the word and place it into some social context. For this she’s given the auto da fe by the forces of hate.

Who do you think in our community is behind this jihad? If you’ve been following my reporting on Nadia Abu El-Haj you’ll recognize the sleazy MO. It’s Daniel Pipes, of course:

Almontaser had by then withstood months of attacks from prominent Jews on the right in New York and nationally. Pipes, executive director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, joined with others to support a local group called Stop the Madrassa, the term for an Islamic seminary.

According to Education Department plans and curricula, the school is set up as a purely secular project. Two Arabic teachers will teach math and social studies. Science and other courses will be in English. But Stop the Madrassa, led by Brooklyn resident Pam Hall, assailed the school as an Islamist undertaking crafted to promote extremism and sectarianism with taxpayer money.

In pressing their attack Hall’s group received crucial research assistance from Pipes, a Web site called PipeLineNews.org and another called Militant Islamic Monitor. In articles and editorials, The New York Post and New York Sun also pursued the story relentlessly.

Many of the research pieces, authored by Beila Rabinowitz and William A. Mayer, attacked Almontaser for her associates — or her associates’ associates. One piece pointed to the presence of Imam Shamsi Ali on the school’s advisory board. Ali, the writers said, promoted “Jihad by groups like the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Circle of North America.” The article offered no evidence of ICNA’a links to al Qaeda…

Another piece claimed that Almontaser was a “9/11 denier.” The piece quoted her saying, “I don’t recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.”

The full quote, given to young students asking her questions about Muslim involvement in 9/11, as reported in a Columbia University publication, was: “I don’t recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims. … Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and have stolen my religion.”

People, this is how low we can go as a Jewish people. We’ve let swine like this take the lead when it comes to our relations with the Arab American community. We let them steal the spotlight with their headline-grabbing, but intellectually dishonest, charges. No one calls them out. This is work the ADL would be rebutting if it itself was doing the job it should be doing. But of course, the ADL under Foxman’s leadership is hopelessly attenuated by its own search for anti-Semites, Arab and otherwise, under every bed.

Larry’s research and my own have proven that Jewish journalists should no longer accept anything Daniel Pipes, Middle East Forum, Campus Watch or Frontpagemagazine say at face value unless it can be unassailably corroborated. Ben Harris in his JTA story about Nadia Abu El-Haj fell into this trap. I hope no other Jewish journalists will do so.

And for the Pipes coup de grace. Let’s read as he hangs himself on his own anti-Muslim petard in an interview with Cohler-Esses:

Pipes, in a piece published in both the New York Post and Jerusalem Post, argued that “learning Arabic in itself promotes an Islamic outlook.” He said he supported such a school in principle because the country needs native-born Arabic speakers. But Pipes warned that in practice, “Arabic language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage…”

The very notion is utterly preposterous. Does learning Latin predispose someone to becoming a radical supporter of Opus Dei? Does learning Hebrew predispose someone to becoming a Kahanist or extremist settler? Their response would be–of course not–because western religions don’t contain elements of extremism inextricably woven into the religions themselves as Islam allegedly does. Again a preposterous, intellectually bankrupt notion.

The interview continues with Pipes pontificating:

The Arab-American community right now — and any Arabic language and culture school — should be subject to “special scrutiny,” he said. “I believe such a school requires scrutiny beyond that of any other group’s school, he said.

“It fits into a larger pattern in which Muslim officials require greater scrutiny, whether they be chaplains [or] law enforcement officers. There is a tendency to sympathize with Islamism that we ignore at our peril. … When law enforcement is looking for a rapist, it looks at men, not men and women. If you’re looking for terrorism you must give special scrutiny to this community.”

Well, that must be because the only terrorists in the world are Muslim, right?

And this is the part of the interview where Pipes calls Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein leftists (I kid you not):

Asked how Khalil Gibran and Almontaser had garnered such substantial Jewish support, Pipes replied, “Jews are generally on the liberal side of things. There is a softness on Islamism the more you go on the left.”

Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein were part of this pattern, he said. “They’re modestly to the left. It’s just such an established pattern.

“What I am arguing for — special scrutiny — is often done,” he said. “But it’s done in an unofficial, underhanded way. It’s lying basically. It’s a disservice to Muslims who don’t believe law enforcement when they say you’re not being singled out.

“Let’s make it overt. Let’s say there is a difference. It would be healthy to have a debate about it.”

Yeah, let’s make our national racism overt. Let’s admit that we suspect all Muslims of being terrorists. Let’s admit that Daniel Pipes’ agenda of hate is the agenda of the American Jewish community and America as a whole.

And in case all of the above didn’t persuade you that Pipes’ is a disingenuous charlatan take a look at the following and tell me who he thinks he’s fooling:

Asked if he would have favored “special scrutiny” of the immigrant Jewish community teeming with socialists, communists and anarchists on the Lower East Side in the early 20th century to deal with terrorist bombings by some anarchists during that period, Pipes replied, “I’m happy to apply this wherever it’s useful.”

Either Pipes is serious and he would’ve been among the Jews serving as informants against his fellow Jews to the Justice Department during the infamous Palmer Raids of the 1920s (in which case he would’ve been a miserable snitch); or else he’s a liar. Can you imagine any Jew who would accept the singling out of his own religious compatriots for suspicion of disloyalty AS A GROUP? Again, the idea is preposterous and only shows Pipes for the intellectual double-dealer he is.