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Several dozen Jews converged on the sidewalk outside the 92nd Street Y Thursday evening, July 11, for the first in an ongoing series of protests that will be held in the same place, every second Thursday of every month.  The protests will continue until the 92nd Street Y responds to repeated requests that it stop using Jewish communal dollars to showcase and support speakers and events that demonize Israel.

Two of the leaders of the global anti-Israel movement were scheduled to appear at the Y this spring.  Roger Waters was scheduled to speak at the Y in April and Alice Walker spoke at the Y in May.  Among many other hostile acts towards Israel, Waters and Walker teamed up in an attempt to block the Israeli Philharmonic from appearing at Carnegie Hall in October, 2012.

Richard Allen, the head of JCC Watch, told The Jewish Press that for months he and others have been attempting to have a conversation with the leadership of the 92nd St Y about their hosting people at the forefront of the movement to commit political and economic warfare against Israel, and, to add insult to injury, using “hard-earned funds” contributed by Jews who are led to believe that money would be used to support the Jewish community.

But the folks who run the 92nd Street Y won’t even give them the courtesy of a return phone call, let alone a meeting.

Allen’s response is to publicly expose what he calls “donor fraud, perpetrated not only by the 92nd Street Y, but also by other Jewish organizations which raise money from Jewish donors on the pretext that the money would be used to benefit the Jewish community.  But instead, some of that money is actually being used to twist support against Israel, it is being used to actively promote attacks against the Jewish State.”

Many who came to protest what they claim is donor fraud carried Israeli flags and handed out flyers to people going into the 92nd Street Y.

The flyers described speakers who were recently invited to speak at the venue and who are leaders in what is known as the BDS movement – the movement which promotes the boycott of, divestment from and imposing sanctions against Israel. Hundreds of flyers were distributed Thursday night.

The flyers also described a new initiative by the group which they are calling the “Close Your Wallets” campaign:

It Is Time to “Close Your Wallets” to Jewish Organizations that Host & Promote Israel Boycotters. We’ll be there in blue and white on the second Thursday of every month to raise awareness of the 92 st Y’s history of hosting Leaders of the Boycott against Israel Movement. No Jewish funding for Boycotts Divestments and Sanctions against Israel!

Ronit Jacobs came with her daughter from New Jersey to join the protest.

“How can the Y host leaders of the BDS movement, which is a cult set on the destruction of Israel,” Jacobs asked Thursday night. “Not only do the BDS people seek to harm Israel, it is clear they don’t even really care about the ‘Palestinian’ people.  If they did,” Jacobs continued, “they would be protesting the horrible treatment of Palestinian Syrians and Palestinian Jordanians and Palestinian Lebanese.  But they don’t.  All these people really want is to rid the land of all Jews.”

Others who showed up to Thursday night offered additional evidence that the 92nd Street Y is insufficiently supportive of Israel.

Robert Sidi, a Manhattan attorney, pointed out to The Jewish Press that he had “reviewed the Y’s electronic calendar and the only Israel-related programming is Israeli folk dancing.  Now no one loves Israeli folk dancing more than I do,” Sidi said, “but it is a disgrace that the only thing about Israel the Y thinks is worthwhile is Israeli folk dancing.”

Helen Freedman, the executive director of Americans for a Safe Israel, and Judy Kadish, AFSI’s special projects director, were both at the protest Thursday night.

“Promoting hatred against Israel and Jews is not what public institutions should be used for,” Freedman said.  “And yet, when AFSI offered to speak, to provide facts about Judea and Samaria, the Y told us we were too political.”

The Israeli franchise owner of McDonald’s, Peace Now co-founder Omri Padan, has caused an uproar in the city of Ariel in Samaria by refusing to allow a Big Mac branch in the city’s new mall.

In a reverse of the Boycott Israel movement, Ariel residents are threatening a Boycott McDonald’s movement.

The new mall was opened by the popular Rami Levy HaShikma supermarket, with plans for a McDonald’s  branch in the shopping complex.

Padan’s boycott not only will deprive Ariel’s Jews from chomping on McDonald’s menu items, but it also will lock out tens of thousands of Palestinian Authority Arabs in the area, who also will be deprived of the same equal job opportunities at McDonald’s that Rami Levy offers.

Ariel Mayor Eli Shviro told Channel 2 television, “If this is the case, it is a miserable decision. It discriminates against us. We are residents just like everyone in the country, and this is out of place.”

Padan stands his ground, as he has done for years. Levy says that the McDonald’s Israeli franchise owner is a victim of “mistaken thinking,” but McDonald’s Israel said in a statement. “This has always been the policy of Dr. Omri Padan.”

Indeed it has.

In 1998 he said in an interview with the Haaretz  newspaper, “McDonald’s Israel neither did nor will open a branch at any Israeli settlement beyond the Green Line. Already when I was the general manager of Kitan Textiles I told the board I would resign immediately if they move to open a plant on the West Bank. I have the privilege of not needing to compromise on my principles.”

He also fought in the past against a McDonald’s branch in Ramat Gan, adjacent to Tel Aviv, from becoming – God forbid – kosher, even though the orthodox Jewish owner of the mall required that stores be closed on Shabbat. He said in 1997, “We will be a non-kosher restaurant selling cheese-burgers, milkshakes and ice-cream.”

Nine years later, the Big Cheese in McDonald’s American headquarters overruled him and ordered the Ramit Aviv facility to go kosher.

It is doubtful that the bosses will intervene in Ariel. McDonald’s would prefer to suffer a boycott of a few thousand Jews, or even a few hundred thousand in Israel and abroad, rather than a mega-boycott by the BDS movement.

The Boycott Israel movement would gleefully add the hamburger chain to its list of companies that dare to operate in Judea and Samaria, even if they employ Arabs.

So don’t figure on a McDonald’s branch in Ariel.

But there always is the good side to everything. Ariel residents, and neighboring Arabs, will be spared McDonald’s nutrition.

Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant defended his band’s decision to play in Israel amid pressure from the Boycott Israel movement to cancel the June 23 concert.

A statement by Tennant was posted on the British duo’s official website following the release of a poster showing them wearing sunglasses stamped with the captions “1 child killed every three days” and “2 kids caged every day.”

The poster was created by the Britain-based pro-Palestinian group Innovative Minds.

Tennant wrote, “I don’t agree with this comparison of Israel to apartheid-era South Africa. It’s a caricature. Israel has (in my opinion) some crude and cruel policies based on defense; it also has universal suffrage and equality of rights for all its citizens both Jewish and Arab. In apartheid-era South Africa, artists could only play to segregated audiences; in Israel anyone who buys a ticket can attend a concert.

The Pet Shop Boys will perform at Nokia Stadium in Tel Aviv. They performed in Israel in 2009 and 1999.

“Brava to Alicia Keys,” declares an editorial in Monday’s NY Daily News, hailing the 14-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter “for standing up for truth and cultural freedom in refusing to join the insidious campaign to delegitimize Israel.”

Keys will be performing in Tel Aviv on July 4. As she was booking the venue, several leading figure in the BDS movement, seeking to punish Israel for “victimizing the Palestinians” in ways that have been compared to the South African apartheid regime (although a famous South African politician recently chastised the BDS activists for cheapening the memory of the South African suffering by comparing it to the benign conditions of Arabs in the European-style Israeli democracy (Give ‘Em H-E Double Toothpicks, Mr. Meshoe!).

Author Alice Walker urged Keys in a letter posted online to join the boycott of Israel. “Writing as an older black woman to a younger woman who was born to a black father and a white mother, Walker, 69, addressed Keys, 33, with words that were as offensively condescending as they were smugly muddleheaded,” noted the Daily News editorial.

“Keys would have none of it from a person who is one step above a lunatic shouting anti-Semitic canards on the street. She told The New York Times, ‘I look forward to my first visit to Israel. Music is a universal language that is meant to unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show.’

Brava, indeed!

As if it wasn’t enough to have the once-famous novelist Alice Walker publicly claim that the young rhythm and blues singer Alicia Keys will suffer mortal soul decay if Keys goes ahead with her plan to sing in Israel, which Walker and her minions refer to as an Apartheid State, and a huge Internet and petitioning effort to similarly dissuade her, now the national American newspaper USA Today has lent a helping hand.

In a “news article” printed on Wednesday, June 12, USA Today‘s music critic, Steve Jones, cut and pasted nearly the entire press release sent out the day before by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

The press release/news article told USA Today‘s readers that a “delegation representing more than 500 organizations” delivered a petition with “12,000 signatures” to the New York office of Keys’ non-profit Keep a Child Alive which provides support to children and families devastated by AIDS in Africa and India.

The USCACBI petition lists many of the worst-lies-about-Israel-that-Israel-haters-love-to-repeat, such as that Israel is an Apartheid State and that it is a systemic abuser of “Palestinian human rights, and even that Keys’

performance is legitimizing a country that systematically undermines her nonprofit’s mission, that ‘every person has the right to health care and that all children deserve a future.’ Israel routinely denies Palestinians health care and systematically destroys the futures of Palestinian children, denying their rights to education and health care, and regularly arresting Palestinian children and then torturing the vast majority of them.

There is no mention in the USA Today article that Israel routinely treats not only hundreds of Arab Palestinian children and adults a year, but that it does so even for the children of terrorists as well as the terrorists themselves, as any quick Internet search would quickly reveal.

An Internet search that took less than five seconds produced information that more than 100,000 Arab Palestinians were treated in Israeli hospitals in 2011.  More than 4 million other results also showed up for the simple search “Israel treats Palestinians hospitals.”

Incidentally, that same search revealed that more than 100 Arab Palestinian doctors work in Israeli hospitals – there goes the Apartheid lie, for anyone who might be interested in truthful reporting.

The USA Today article does not put quotes around the following, which is in Jones’s “article”:

In response to Israel’s large-scale abuses of Palestinian rights, Palestinian Civil Society launched a call for a global campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel in 2005, modeled on the call by black South Africans for a boycott of apartheid South Africa that helped bring an end to the racist system.

The press release/USA Today article goes on to recount the names of other artists who have been successfully intimidated – eagerly or otherwise – into believing the worst about Israel and who have cancelled their performances in Israel.

Columnist Jeffrey Goldberg was apparently the first to notice the similarity between the press release and the article, and tweeted it on Thursday.  The Algemeiner also took note.

Thus far Keys has remained firm and plans to perform in Tel Aviv on July 4.  There are some social media efforts to support Keys in this position, including this Facebook page, “Alicia Keys Plays for Peace in Israel,” and an inspired effort by a New Jersey woman described in an earlier Jewish Press article, urging supporters to buy Keys’ music worldwide on the day of her Tel Aviv concert.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a resolution to continue awarding city contracts without regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The resolution passed Wednesday was intended as a rebuttal to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which aims to bring economic pressure to bear on Israel, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal reported.

The resolution comes less than a year after BDS activists called on the city to not renew a bus contract with the French company Veolia Transportation, which also has business holdings in the West Bank.

The resolution states “that the City of Los Angeles will continue to make contracting decisions based on the best interests of the City, its residents, businesses and taxpayers and in accordance with the City Charter and applicable State and Federal law and hereby affirms that issues related to the Arab-Israeli conflict will not be considered and will have no impact on the awarding of contracts with the City of Los Angeles.”

Council members Paul Koretz and Mitchell Englander sponsored the resolution. The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles helped draft the resolution.

A Tel Aviv-based civil rights group warned Australian supporters of a proposed boycott against Israel on Thursday that their activities were racist, and in violation of Australian Federal anti-discrimination laws. Recently, faculty and students at Sydney University called for the severing of links with Israeli institutions.

In letters sent to Associate Professor Jake Lynch, Professor Stuart Rees and others, Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center threatened to take legal action if they did not immediately discontinue their boycott campaign.

This past semester, the university’s student body endorsed Associate Professor Jake Lynch’s academic boycott of Israel. Lynch had publicly announced his refusal to work with Dan Avnon, an Israeli professor from the prestigious Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which promotes Israeli-Arab coexistence, and also called for a boycott of Technion University in Haifa.

Professors’ Lynch and Rees’ actions, although widely condemned by mainstream politicians and community figures, have also been supported by NSW Labor MP Lynda Voltz and Mary Kostakidis.

According to NSW Solicitor Andrew Hamilton of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been recognized as antisemitic by leading authorities such as Anti-Defamation League in the United States, and in a report recently released by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

In the letters Hamilton pointed out that the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 made it “unlawful for a person to do any act involving a distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, … national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of any human right or fundamental freedom in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.”

Hamilton also warned that any “successful” boycott of Israel was illegal under the Competition and Consumer Act of 2010 if they damage the businesses they target, and that as a result parties could be investigated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and face legal action for damages.

“Lynch, Rees, Voltz and others like them seek to impose restrictions on those having Israeli and Jewish national, racial or ethnic origins, whether these are goods, services, persons and organizations. The participants of the BDS movement clearly seek to violate freedoms guaranteed by Federal law,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton added out that “these individuals act with the clear purpose of nullifying or impairing the recognition and equal footing of those persons and organizations whom they seek to boycott, divest from and sanction.”

Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center is an organization dedicated to enforcing basic human rights through the legal system and represents victims of terrorism in courtrooms around the world. Its clients include American, European, and Israeli citizens. It is a fully independent non-profit organization, unaffiliated with any political party or governmental body.

Read a copy of the letter to Lynch.

Pro-Israel New Yorkers continue to seek ways to prevent Jewish charitable dollars from supporting anti-Israel activities and speakers.

Because the UJA-Federation is the source of funding for so many Jewish organizations, an organized effort is about to get underway to ensure that this funding source – all of which comes from Jewish donors – is being used to fund programming that is infused with Jewish values and which is supportive of Israel.  This effort is in response to several years during which UJA-Federation-supported entities use some of those donors’ dollars to support efforts to cripple the Jewish state.

One of the most active efforts to stop this suicidal movement is led by Richard Allen who began JCC Watch several years ago when he was no longer able to abide the many anti-Israel events taking place at New York City’s Jewish Community Center.

Allen decided that one way to fight the battle was to inform as many people as possible about the problem.  He created a huge database of email addresses and periodically sends out emails with detailed information about anti-Israel events and suggestions for action. He is judicious about the frequency of his mailings and is careful to include accurate information.  And he just keeps adding to the roll of email addresses.

Allen and his colleagues found that the NYC JCC was partnering with groups that blatantly promote economic and political warfare against Israel known as the BDS movement (Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel).

In March 2011, JCC Watch held a protest outside the JCC and issued a call for the JCC to “establish public and transparent guidelines that make clear that the JCC will not partner with nor link to other organizations that support or fund the BDS movement.”

While the JCC has not stopped its anti-Israel programming completely, Allen and others have said that there has been an improvement in the kinds of activities and events it has hosted over the past two years.

Most recently, JCC Watch has been closely following the hosting by the 92nd Street Y of several virulently anti-Israel BDS advocates.

Two of the most ardent “celebrity” promoters of BDS were recently scheduled to appear at the Y.  Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame was supposed to appear at the 92nd Street Y in April, and only didn’t because he encountered scheduling problems.  And just a few weeks ago, the rabidly anti-Israel novelist Alice Walker spoke at the Y.  Both endorse BDS and both actively attempt to get other artists to boycott and otherwise harm the Jewish State.

The National Council of Young Israel issued a call to the Y’s leadership on Wednesday, June 12.

“While we admire your longstanding effort to promote Jewish culture,” the NCYI leadership wrote, “we are deeply concerned over your ill-considered programmatic decisions that run counter to the interests of your own constituency. Extending an invitation to noted anti-Israel personalities is counterproductive and runs afoul of your desire to affirm a commitment to the State of Israel and world Jewry. Individuals who denigrate the Jewish State should not be welcomed with open arms at any venue that is associated with a Jewish group or organization.”

NCYI went on to ask that the leadership of the 92nd Street Y give greater care “in the future to the selection of featured speakers at the 92nd Street Y and ask that you invite those who stand for and with Israel instead of those who call for boycotting Israel.”

JCC Watch was thrilled that other Jewish organizations are responding to the need to prevent Jewish donors’ dollars from being used to fund anti-Israel activity. It and several supporters tried repeatedly to reach administration personnel at the Y in order to discuss the matter, but their efforts were stymied by bureaucratic roadblocks.

Now JCC Watch is taking the issue to the UJA-Federation, because the 92nd St Y receives funding from UJA-Federation.

“Those are Jewish charitable dollars, given by Jewish residents of New York who want their dollars to go towards funding Jewish Values.  Trying to destroy the Jewish State is not a Jewish value and is not something donors had any reason to believe they would be funding,” said Allen.

On Wednesday, June 12, JCC Watch gave Jerry W. Levin, president of the UJA-Federation, a heads up regarding the next stage of activity for JCC Watch and its allies.

Levin was advised that unless assurances are given that anti-Israel programming such as Walker and Waters will not be supported with Jewish Communal charity money, there will be a monthly protest in front of
the 92St Y.

These monthly protests will include what is being called the “Close Your Wallets” campaign.  This campaign will ask people to stop supporting charities which support, through funding, these anti-Israel events.

The ongoing “Close Your Wallets” campaign will be called: The Sons & Daughters of Zion in Blue & White.  Blue & White Ribbons will be given to the public each protest day and protesters will be urged to wear Blue & White.  The educational component of this campaign will begin this week, and the protests are expected to begin in early July.

“Just like the mothers of the disappeared in Argentina,” Allen wrote, “we will build the pressure until they have to respond.”

Allen envisions the campaign to include emails, direct mailings, direct phone campaigns and synagogue organizing throughout the greater New York area.  He said the JCC Watch “Jewish Community Alert” will be used, and that goes directly to the inbox of every rabbi, synagogue and organizational leadership, student leadership, charitable and educational leadership throughout the organized Jewish world.”

JCC Watch urged UJA-Federation’s head Levin to review financial support to institutions that provide a venue to anti-Israel programming.  Levin was informed that Allen will “personally fund this effort to insure a complete national saturation within the Jewish Community of our activities.”

Americans for a Safe Israel’s executive director, Helen Freedman, wrote in an email to The Jewish Press, that “rather than try to plug every leak, it is important to get to the leadership of Jewish institutions like the 92nd Street Y and the JCC in NYC and discuss the issues with them. If the scheduling of BDS and anti-Israel speakers is inadvertent, then more careful attention must be paid. If it is deliberate, it is inexcusable and the Jewish community should withdraw its financial and participatory support.”

“The goal of the New York Lawyers Committee to Stop BDS is to make sure that Jewish organizations immediately implement programs that educate and inform our community about the dangers to world Jewry in general and Israel in particular of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel,” its chairman, Robert Sidi, told The Jewish Press. “The 92 Street Y must stop hosting supporters of BDS; our own Jewish leadership must stop denouncing, denigrating and delegitimizing Israel.”

“If the leadership of the Y and JCC refuse to meet with us in order to clarify and rectify the situation, AFSI will have no choice but to join with the organizations picketing against them,” AFSI’s Freedman wrote.