Days after Poway, man harasses and lunges at Chabad rabbi in NY

Josefin Dolsten

Chabad rabbi harassed on Manhattan street by man who lunged at him, hurling anti-Semitic slurs.

Rabbi Uriel Vigler was heading to morning prayers on Tuesday as he does every day on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, just before 7 a.m., when a man began shouting anti-Semitic insults at him.

Vigler said the man called him a “f***ing Jew.”

“Instinctively, I moved away,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I moved to the other side of the street, and he follows me and he said, ‘Are you nervous, are you scared?’”

As Vigler neared the synagogue, he said the man lunged at him. When the assailant noticed the congregation’s security guard, he turned around and called the rabbi “the devil.” The rabbi recorded the end of the incident and shared the video on Facebook.

Though the man did not harm Vigler, the rabbi believes that if the security guard had not been present, the assailant would have physically attacked him. Vigler has filed a report with the New York Police Department but has yet to hear back.

The incident comes just days after a shooter attacked a Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, killing one and wounding three.

Vigler, who leads the Chabad Israel Center on the Upper East Side along with his wife, Shevy, said he would not let the incident deter him from doing his work.

“We are not afraid,” he said. “We are going to continue our mission to spread goodness and kindness in the world, to reach out to Jews with unconditional love.”

GREENBLATT TO ‘POST:’ TRUMP NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIONS OF HIS SUPPORTERS

MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN

Ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, U.S. Special Envoy maintained that the president has “come out clearly and repeatedly against antisemitism and hatred in all forms.”

U.S. Envoy for Middle East negotiations Jason Greenblatt on a visit in Israel. (photo credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

President Trump is not responsible for the hateful views or actions of every person that may claim to support him,” US Special Envoy Jason D. Greenblatt told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

In an interview ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins Wednesday at sundown and continues Thursday, Greenblatt maintained that the president has “come out clearly and repeatedly against antisemitism and hatred in all its forms.

“In discussing the persecution of the Jewish people shortly after the heinous attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, President Trump said, ‘We must stand with our Jewish brothers and sisters to defeat antisemitism and vanquish the forces of hate….Those seeking their destruction, we will seek their destruction,’” Greenblatt maintained just one day after the a report by the Anti-Defamation League showed that the number of Jews physically assaulted in the United States has more than doubled in 2018 compared to the 2017 figures.

Noticeably, the report found that the number of antisemitic incidents in 2018 perpetrated by far-right and white supremacist groups, as well as individuals inspired by such ideologies, was the highest since 2004.

“Unfortunately, Jewish institutions and citizens have come under attack in the United States without regard to our political leadership,” Greenblatt continued. “So, we must remain vigilant in condemning it when we see it and in continuing to teach our children the importance of tolerance and respect.”

Greenblatt recalled how, as a young man, when he traveled to Europe for the first time he was “struck and saddened” by the level of security around synagogues.

“Now that that kind of blatant antisemitism and hatred has made its way to our shores in America – most recently with the heinous attack on the Poway synagogue in San Diego, and just before that at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh – it is deeply disturbing,” Greenblatt said. “Jews around the world continue to be endangered by the scourge of antisemitism. Sadly, it is a very real and pervasive problem in our world.”

Greenblatt was one of the first senior officials to comment last week on a decision by the New York Times to publish a caricature that the paper has since acknowledged was antisemitic.

“The cartoon wasn’t just dangerous — it was despicable,” Greenblatt tweeted. “NYT owes us a transparent plan of action to ensure this will never happen again & should share results of their investigation.”

When it was discovered that the paper had published a second cartoon over the weekend that showed Netanyahu dressed as Moses and descending from Mount Sinai with a selfie stick and a tablet inscribed with a Star of David, Greenblatt again responded in kind. He tweeted that he was “confounded and shocked by another terrible decision by the NYT as our nation is grieving the deadly attack in Poway,” referring to the shooting attack at the California Chabad synagogue that claimed the life of Lori Kaye-Gilbert and left three others wounded.

Greenblatt serves as Trump’s special representative for international negotiations and is leading efforts to achieve a “Deal of the Century” between the Israelis and Palestinians with Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner. Greenblatt said he is aware  of the link between anti-Israel sentiment and antisemtisim. He told the Post that “the denial of Israel’s right to exist is at the very origin of antisemitism.”

“We must never accept narratives that claim Israel does not have a right to exist,” Greenblatt continued. “Anti-Zionism – denying the very legitimacy of the Israeli state and of the Jewish people – is clear antisemitism, and the Trump administration will continue to fight it relentlessly.”

He noted that Trump and his administration “have been tirelessly committed to combatting antisemitism in all its forms,” including recently appointing Elan Carr as special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism.

In response to a question about the handful of freshman lawmakers in the US who seem to espouse antisemitic ideas in the halls of Congress, Greenblatt said the key is education and “clearly and unequivocally calling out antisemitism wherever we see it or hear it.

“We can have an educated and decent debate about the domestic and foreign policy decisions of another country without being antisemitic or denouncing that country’s right to exist,” he said.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the alliance between the United States and Israel has never been stronger,” Greenblatt continued. “I am confident that there are, and always will be, US lawmakers who understand the importance of our relationship with Israel. I would also add that antisemitism should be bipartisan and that all sides can and should unite against. This and America’s unwavering support for Israel must transcend party lines.”

How do we ensure the next ADL report shows a reduction in antisemitic incidents rather than a continual rise?

Greenblatt said the answer is education.

Programs such as March of the Living, “are a tremendous opportunity for people to learn the terrible evil man is capable of,” he said. “It is also an opportunity to remember the 6 million Jews who were systematically targeted and slaughtered because they were Jewish.”

He continued, “We must teach our children to love and respect one another and to fight all forms of hatred.”

Learn about the March of the Living.

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Airbnb will cancel its ban on West Bank settlement listings

BEN SALES

Moria Shapira, an Airbnb apartment owner, cleans her apartment in the Adei Ad outpost north of the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Nov. 20, 2018. (Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images)

(JTA) — In a reversal of a 2018 policy announcement, Airbnb will not remove West Bank settlement listings from its website.

The policy change came in a court settlement Monday between the vacation rental company and a dozen American Jewish plaintiffs who had sued the company, organized by Shurat Hadin-Israel Law Center, a pro-Israel law organization. A copy of the settlement obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency says that Airbnb will now allow rentals in both Palestinian areas and Israeli settlements of the West Bank.

“Airbnb takes no position on the Host-Plaintiffs’ claims, or others’ claims, to legal title to the properties on which the accommodations are located,” the court settlement reads. “All listings for accommodations located in the Affected Region [the West Bank] will at all times be permitted on its platform, subject to applicable laws, rules, and regulations.”

Airbnb announced in November that it would remove some 200 rental listings in West Bank settlements because it contended that the settlements “are at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.” The movement to boycott Israel saw the decision as a victory.

But Airbnb never actually removed the listings. And about a week after the decision, Shurat Hadin organized the suit on behalf of a dozen American Jewish families, most of whom own properties in West Bank settlements. The suit was filed under the Fair Housing Act, which was meant to prevent discrimination against minorities in the United States. Because Airbnb is based in the United States, it must adhere to the act in all its listings worldwide.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claimed that Airbnb was discriminating against them for being Jewish, given that it still allowed listings by Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the West Bank.

“The policy Airbnb announced last November was abject discrimination against Jewish users of the website,”Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the president of Shurat Hadin, said in a statement. “Whatever one’s political view, discrimination based on religious affiliation should never be the solution.”

In a statement posted to its website Tuesday, Airbnb said it will donate any profits from the West Bank to humanitarian groups. It also will apply the same policy to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two disputed territories adjacent to Georgia, and evaluate its listings in other disputed territories.

Airbnb has yet to announce where it will donate the profits.

“We understand the complexity of the issue that was addressed in our previous policy announcement, and we will continue to allow listings throughout all of the West Bank, but Airbnb will take no profits from this activity in the region,” the statement reads. “Any profits generated for Airbnb by any Airbnb host activity in the entire West Bank will be donated to non-profit organizations dedicated to humanitarian aid that serve people in different parts of the world.”

Airbnb said in its statement that it does not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

“Airbnb has always opposed the BDS movement,” the statement reads. “Airbnb has never boycotted Israel, Israeli businesses, or the more than 20,000 Israeli hosts who are active on the Airbnb platform. We have always sought to bring people together and will continue to work with our community to achieve this goal.”