Briefs

AFTER UN REPORT, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION REJECTS ANNEXATION COMPARISONS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND ISRAEL

The Biden administration rejected comparisons between Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

“We categorically reject the blanket comparison between [Israel’s occupation and] the actions of the Kremlin—Russia in this case—that has launched and waged a brutal war of aggression against another sovereign state, a sovereign state that posed and poses no threat whatsoever to the Kremlin, a military campaign… whose toll can be measured in thousands upon thousands of lives lost,” Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, said. Price was reacting to a reporter’s question prompted by a statement by Navi Pillay, the chairwoman of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry into Israel’s activities in the West Bank. The COI report concluded that Israel’s 55-year-old occupation of the West Bank had become so entrenched it was now de facto annexation. Pillay, in the statement attached to the release of the report, said that the U.N. General Assembly’s recent condemnation of Russia for annexing four areas of Ukraine would be rendered meaningless if the United Nations did not adopt her commission’s report.

“Recent statements by the SecretaryGeneral and numerous member States have clearly indicated that any attempt at unilateral annexation of a State’s territory by another State is a violation of international law and is null and void; 143 member States including Israel last week voted in favor of a General Assembly resolution reaffirming this,” she said in the release. “Unless universally applied, including to the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, this core principle of the United Nations Charter will become meaningless.”

In a press briefing, Price enumerated the differences the Biden administration saw between the Israel and Russia situations, among them that Russia faced no threat from Ukraine prior to launching its war against the country, and that the West Bank is not Palestinian sovereign territory.

He said that Israel should not be immune from criticism and that the Biden administration remains committed to a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But he added that the United Nations frequently unfairly singles out Israel for criticism.

“No country is or should be immune from criticism. That, of course, includes Israel,” he said. “Some of the criticism that we’ve heard—and we’ve, of course, offered our own over the course of recent months— is justified. Much of it is not.” (JTA)

BEN BERNANKE, FORMER FED CHAIR, SHARES ECONOMICS NOBEL FOR RESEARCH ON BANKS AND CRISIS

Ben Bernanke, the Jewish former chairman of the Federal Reserve, shared the Nobel Prize for Economics with two other scholars for their work in examining how banks function in economic crises.

Bernanke was recognized for an influential 1983 paper, written when he was a professor at Stanford University that examined the Depression era to show how runs on banks during economic uncertainty tend to exacerbate and broaden a crisis. His theories helped inform his handling of the 2008 economic crisis and the bailout of major financial institutions at the time.

Sharing the prize for their separate research into bank collapse were two American scholars, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig.

Bernanke, 68, was chairman of the Fed from 2006 to 2014, and was one of at least five Jewish chairmen of the body, which is the United States’ central banking system. His predecessor, Alan Greenspan, was Jewish, as was his successor, Janet Yellen.

The Associated Press quoted Bernanke as saying that he and his wife turned off their cell phones on Sunday, October 9 in the evening, and so did not know about winning the prize until Monday when their daughter called and relayed the news. The Nobel academies generally inform laureates the evening before the official announcement. It’s not clear why the Bernankes had shut off their phones, but Bernanke, whose middle name is Shalom, is known to observe Jewish holidays, and Sunday was the first night of Sukkot.

Bernanke grew up in Dillon, South Carolina (where a highway interchange is named for him), and in his autobiography wrote how he encountered antisemitism growing up—classmates asked him if he had horns—but that saw that Blacks had it much harder. His family was among the few Jewish families in town and hosted rabbinical students who traveled from New York City to lead services. (JTA)

GOP GROUPS QUIET ON PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR RACE AFTER MASTRIANO ADVISER QUESTIONS IF JOSH SHAPIRO IS JEWISH

The Republican Jewish Coalition and the Republican Governor’s Association are among the GOP groups that have declined to comment on statements by Jenna Ellis, a top adviser for Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor Doug Mastriano, after Ellis appeared to question the Jewishness of Mastriano’s opponent Josh Shapiro.

Ellis was previously a lawyer for Donald Trump who is best known for promoting the former president’s lie that he won the 2020 election. On Friday, Oct. 21, she called The Washington Post “disingenuous” for a headline that said Shapiro “emphasizes [his] Jewish faith” in his campaign.

Shapiro, who keeps kosher and has referenced Shabbat in campaign ads, says that his faith is central to his mission. “My Scripture teaches me that no one is required to complete the task. But neither are we free to refrain from it,” The Washington Post quoted him as saying on the campaign trail.

“Josh Shapiro is at best a secular Jew in the same way Joe Biden is a secular Catholic,” Ellis, who is not Jewish, said in a tweet. “Both are extremists for gender transition surgeries on minors and no limits on abortion. Doug Mastriano is for wholesome family values and freedom.”

Responding to pushback, Ellis said she was “criticizing a candidate’s policy views for being contrary to their professed faith,” arguing that it is “contrary to Jewish, Catholic, & Christian faiths to be pro-choice.”

Mastriano had previously angered Jewish groups, including the RJC, for his associations with Gab, a social media site favored by extremists, including the man who massacred 11 Jews in Pittsburgh in 2018, and whose founder, Andrew Torba, is openly antisemitic. He paid Gab $5,000 for consulting fees.

After his Gab ties were revealed, Mastriano said he rejected “antisemitism in any form,” but did not refer to Gab or Torba. He also accepted a $500 donation to his campaign from Torba.

Mastriano has attacked Shapiro for sending his children to a private Jewish school, saying it showed Shapiro has “disdain” for “people like us,” without noting that the school was Jewish.

Outlooks on abortion differ among Jewish denominations, but each includes allowances for abortion. In many cases, these allowances are at odds with the state laws banning abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s reversal this summer of Roe v. Wade, a 1973 ruling enshrining a right to an abortion. (JTA)

COMEDIAN WHO WENT VIRAL AFTER HAVING BEER THROWN AT HER MAKES A VERY JEWISH TV DEBUT ON JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE

Several weeks ago, Ariel Elias, then a little-known standup comedian performing at a club in New Jersey, had a beer thrown at her head from a group of Trumpsupporting hecklers who discovered she voted for Joe Biden. After the beer smashed against the brick wall behind her, she picked up the splattered can and chugged its remaining contents.

It made for a very viral video and caught the attention of comedians from Whitney Cummings to Jimmy Kimmel, prompting the latter to invite her onto his late-night talk show.

On Monday, Oct. 24, Elias appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, making her TV debut— and delivered an extremely Jewish set.

“I’m Jewish and from Kentucky,” she said to applause. “That’s an insane origin story.”

Elias focused on what it was like growing up as a Jewish kid in the South, such as the way people pronounced her name (like “Earl”) and how classmates told her she was going to hell “from a place of love.” She also recalled a story from high school when her parents, who had moved to Kentucky from New Jersey, sat her down to tell her that they didn’t care if she was gay—they just wanted her to date someone Jewish.

“As long as they’re Jewish? We live in Kentucky. The choices are my dad or my brother, that’s it,” she said. (JTA)