Rachel Neuwirth is one of the two individuals likely to have engaged in cyber-harassment of me and numerous other individuals who embrace a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At 7:45 AM this (Sunday) morning, my wife was woken by Neuwirth’s phone call. She wanted to speak to me about things I’ve written here about her. I did not give this woman my phone number. I have never spoken to her. Her call was unsolicited and unwanted. I want to have no direct communication with this person. I am offended that someone I do not know personally and do not wish to know would attempt to invade my privacy like this. Rachel, we’re screening our calls from now on so don’t bother calling.
She has already invaded my e mail privacy by sending many harassing e mails to me and members of the Alef listserv. One of the latest was a nice knockoff of Ding Dong the Witch is Dead celebrating the death by cancer of Israeli professor and peace activist, Tanya Reinhart. That’s the Rachel Neuwirth the Israeli-Palestinian peace community has come to know and love.
What’s probably getting her goat is that I wrote here after her four-year legal fight with Rabbi Chaim Seidler Feller (which the latter recently ended with an apology to Neuwirth) that I didn’t believe her story. She sent me an e-mail noting that the right-wing Jerusalem Post not only announced Seidler-Feller’s capitulation to her, but removed any previous reporting from its archives which alluded to Seidler-Feller’s original version of the story (which claimed that she goaded him into a fight by calling him a kapo). How’s that for erasing the journalistic record? Apparently, in Neuwirth’s world no one is entitled to an opinion other than her own. I always thought that American was a place where people (including bloggers) could express their opinions freely without fear of harassment or intimidation.
UPDATE: In fact, I just found this Neuwirth whine published by IsraelInsider which confirms what I wrote above:
On April 29 of this year, I received an apology for the Jerusalem Post’s earlier, inaccurate coverage of the incident from the editor of the Post. The Post simultaneously published Rabbi Seidler-Feller’s apology in full. And it said to its readers that “The Post is happy to clarify that it has removed [two previous articles about the incident] from its electronic archives and that it retracts those sections of those articles that inaccurately relate to the 2003 incident.”
I have also received an apology from four of fifty professors from UCLA who had signed a published letter supporting Rabbi Seidler-Feller and blaming me for the assault.
On the other hand, I have not received apologies or retractions from the Jewish Journal, The Forward, The Jewish Week, or the Jewish Progressive Alliance, all of whom published accounts of this incident that were inaccurate and damaging to me, since Rabbi Seidler-Feller made his apology. My requests for such apologies or retractions to these media or political institutions have so far been ignored. The Forward ran a brief story about the apology but has not published the complete text of the letter. The Jewish Journal published the letter in its internet edition, but Rob Eshman, chief editor, has refused to publish it in its print edition; the Journal even has refused a substantial sum to publish the full text of the apology as an advertisement.
I applaud these publications for standing their ground. They reported every aspect of the case from the beginning to the end including Seidler-Feller’s “apology.” They have nothing to apologize for. Talk about drama queens!
One reason I strongly suspect Neuwirth’s involvement in my episodes of cyber-harassment is that my first blog post about her was written on February 23rd. On March 6th, someone using the fake name “Neil Pomper” along with a southern California IP address (Rachel Neuwirth and her various allies live there) sent me a link to a new listing created about me in the Masada2000 S.H.I.T. list. It featured a stolen image of me juxtaposed with a man’s hairy naked ass (note the “butt-sucking” reference below) and this text:
Earth to Richard, Earth to Richard. The State of Israel was founded with blood and guts thanks to the barbarism and butchery of your friends, the so-called “Palestinians.” If a Jew fights barbarism and butchery with morals, he will be a moral Jew but also a very dead one!
So typical of a self-hating quisling Jew to butt-suck up to the Saudis and Egyptians (the Jordanians are almost as evil) with talk of being “even-handed” between a democratic Israel and filthy, barbaric, Nazi-like, Jew-murdering Arab terror thugs!
In other words Silverstein is par exemplar of the Jewish slimes! Osama and Ahamadinejad you don’t need to recruit Silverstein, he volunteered to join your ranks, but do you accept a filthy maggot faggot?
I can’t say for a fact that Rachel either personally wrote this or posted the e mail to me. But I have no doubt of her participation.
Another interesting set of coincidences: on March 9th I wrote a post noting that Masada2000 had been taken down by its web host. On March 28th, I received another e mail purporting to be from “Neil Pomper” and from the same IP address as before notifying me of a new blog created in my name (though not by me), Little Dickie’s Diaper Droppings. This little blog escapade has more the MO of Steven Plaut (since a victim of a similar harassing blog is convinced Plaut is involved in his). But Plaut is another one of Neuwirth’s Kahanist partners in cyber-bullying (they cooperated in the Tanya Reinhart email described above).
Neuwirth’s current Arutz Sheva profileAfter apologizing to my wife for being so rudely awakened by Neuwirth, I pointed out that she should be happy that she didn’t get the treatment Neuwirth accorded to Yigal Arens’s wife (Yigal is a USC professor and Israeli peace activist) in which Neuwirth appealed to the latter to leave him. Neuwirth called so many times at Yigal’s home that he stopped answering his phone when she called.
Rachel has also been known until recently to pad her resume by claiming in her profile on various websites that she is a current member of the American Jewish Congress Pacific NW region board. She is not. I just checked the Arutz Sheva website and apparently I’ve shamed the AJC into compelling her to remove that out of date reference (see graphics).
Neuwirth’s website, Middle East Solutions, is a veritable feast of Kahanist rhetoric. We Jewish peace activists are guilty of crimes against humanity and the Jewish people for supportiing Israeli-Palestinian peace. We should be tried for treatson in “Nuremberg-like” trials. For the Israelis among us, our personal property should be confiscated. Real hard core stuff.
The problem with people like Steve Plaut and Rachel Neuwirth is that they are bullies. They believe that only they are entitled to harass their enemies (since they’re working on behalf of the Jewish people, natch). But that their enemies are not entitled to speak up for themselves or strike back when harassed or offended. I think what especially offends her is that I’m vigorously defending myself. She probably also doesn’t like that media outlets like the New York Times, Seattle Post Intelligencer and Computerworld are interested in covering this harassment.
One final piece of advice to anyone willing to take on Rachel: get yourself an unlisted number!
Hello Richard,
It must be stating the obvious for you but there seems to have been one or two ‘not so nice’ people vying for your attention of late. Suffice it to say, the world’s capacity to expunge such as these from our midst has long been limited. By the way, notice there how I’ve managed to acquire the category of ‘nice’ for both of us.
Maybe you wouldn’t be entirely comfortable with that label. Too overtly liberal perhaps, too idealistic, not enough steel entering into the collective soul. ‘Nice guys finish last’ so they say, ‘Nice guys never get the girl’, ‘ Nice guys can’t hack it when the going gets tough;, ‘Nice guys are never man enough
to get the job done alone’. Much the same might be said of ‘nice’ solutions also. And haven’t we all seen plenty of those in our time.
But could the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict derive far more benefit from a ‘not so nice’ solution, one where a more radical procedure makes ‘niceness’ not a primary consideration? Certainly a little more muscle in any sort of peace process generally makes for a much faster delivery and with it, very often, some sort of finality.
My own preference on the subject may be known to you. If not, it’s now on my first blog (courtesy http://www.blogger) at http://yorketowers.blogspot.com and augmented there by my very own attempt at a graphic representation.
I can’t help wondering how your Rachel Neuwirth and Steve Plaut might view this particular proposal. Not too kindly, I expect, but then such individuals do tend towards a somewhat blinkered outlook on life. Alternative options to their persuasion, available or mooted, loom large on their radar only as ‘hostile’
entities. They’d rather shoot first so as to avoid answering questions later. Or even beforehand.
Good to see it’s still possible to shoot back now and then.
Regards,
John Yorke.
How do people like Neuwirth reconcile their arab-hatred with the fact that about half of Israelis are Judaeo-Arabs?
Just guessing Zhu – and perhaps Richard has more insight on this – but the population of Jews in the United States from non-European origin is very small. Perhaps it is different in Chicago (where I am from) – but the vast majority are Ashkenazi,
Neuwirth is Israeli I believe (though I could be wrong about that). As for Mizrahi Jews, people like Neuwirth have an ability to see Jews (except ones like me & many of my readers) as blood kin & therefore within the tribe. Anyone fr. an Arab country w/o the Jewish blood/genes is garbage (unless they’re quislings willing to sing Hatikvah).
Hello Richard,
You might derive a mild satisfaction knowing that I consider these people jerks and there is a special internet word for what they do. It’s called “noobism” and it’s laughable. You are not exactly a gift from above yourself, but these people are truly despicable.
Oh and Zhu, it’s not ‘about half’. It’s 19%.
If you want to be cute & mean why don’t you grace someone else’s doorstep?
Zhu wrote “Judeo-Arabs” not “Israeli Arabs.” He meant Mizrahi Jews & he would be correct in the figure he provided.
Hard to imagine that such a “looker” could be filled with such hate and venom…me thinks that Rachel needs a new hobby
Not really unbelievable. People who think they are in position to tell other people what to do and how to live are venomous. Doesn’t really matter what side they come from.
Mike: Though there is much on which we disagree, I am heartened that we can agree that what Rachel Neuwirth & Steven Plaut are doing is “venomous.” Thanks.
Yep. The difference between these folks and Ann Coulter is magnitude.
Guys,
The Rachels and Steves of this world may well be out there – and in some number – but I personally have never met any of them. Neither have I met any of the thousands who have died so far – and will continue to die – as a consequence of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Undoubtedly both groups do exist (or have existed) and our concerns should be addressed to each. But it is possible sometimes to lose sight of what should be the main objective.
There is a danger that the Rachels and Steves serve only to muddy the waters. Addressing whatever options may yet exist to bring about peace in the Middle East would be the best counterpoint to their arguments.
I just hope there are still a few of those options left. Otherwise much more heat than light is likely to be generated; a not uncommon condition in the affairs of mankind.
Yes, I meant Mizrachi, Jews who stem from Morocco or Iraq. I ought to add that I am not Chinese, but an American living in China. Zhu Bajie is a folkloric character, one of the heroes in the fantasy epic_Journey to the West_.
Not that it really matters, but Rachel Neuwirth is Israeli, the daughter of two Yemenite immigrant parents. Neuwirth is her married name — from her second husband, if I recall correctly.