Mick Hartley

At least someone at the UN is doing their job:

I am very concerned by the increasing onslaught on women-specific language, which seeks to erase the reality of womanhood itself and deny its innate and sex-related specificity. A number of influential media outlets, organizations, academic and health institutions, and experts…

— Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls (@UNSRVAW) December 2, 2024

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"I am very concerned by the increasing onslaught on women-specific language, which seeks to erase the reality of womanhood itself and deny its innate and sex-related specificity. A number of influential media outlets, organizations, academic and health institutions, and experts are complicit in what can only be described as a new form of #ViolenceAgainstWomen. It must be stated that words such as "non-transgender women”, "cis women" and the like do not reflect any UN- or otherwise internationally-agreed standards. I call on media and all stakeholders to uphold the dignity of women and respect their human rights."

Further to my earlier post on "artwashing" – "Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art caved to radical student activists last month, severing ties with prominent Jewish philanthropists Candida and Zak Gertler after a targeted campaign against their personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu" – this from the JC:

A major Jewish arts patron has resigned from all her voluntary positions within UK arts institutions over the “alarming rise of antisemitism” and “the tacit normalisation of hate” in her sector.

Candida Gertler, co-founder of the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, announced her decision after Goldsmiths’ Centre for Contemporary Art at the University of London said on Monday that it would remove her and her husband’s names from one of its galleries and its donor board, following a months-long boycott by anti-Israel activists.

The move comes after more than 1,100 artists and art workers signed an open letter calling on Tate to cut ties with Outset. Signatories of the letter include the current Turner Prize nominee Jasleen Kaur, as well as past Turner Prize winners Helen Cammock, Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Charlotte Prodger, according to Art Newspaper.

Outset, which Gertler co-founded in 2003, has raised over £16 m ($20.3 million) for the arts, earning her an OBE “for services to Contemporary Visual Arts and Arts Philanthropy”.

The fund also contributes to Israeli art institutions, and Gertler is a committee member of the British Friends of Art Museums in Israel.

Gertler is married to billionaire German-British real estate developer Zak Gertler, who reportedly hosted Benjamin Netanyahu’s 70th birthday party in 2019 and donated to the prime minister’s political campaigns.

Gertler wrote in her resignation letter: “It is with profound reflection and a heavy heart that I announce my resignation from all voluntary positions within UK arts institutions. This decision comes not out of fear, weakness, or defeat, but as an act of principled protest against the alarming rise of antisemitism and the tacit normalization of hate within physical and online spaces meant to foster creativity and inclusion.

“As someone who has dedicated much of my life to supporting contemporary art, championing dialogue, and creating platforms for diverse voices, I can no longer stand silent when institutions, intimidated by violent and aggressive activism that dismisses dialogue, or any kind of communication fails to uphold the foundational values of equality and respect. Recent revelations of vile antisemitic sentiments in these spaces have shocked and appalled me. These are not isolated incidents but part of a broader culture that seeks to marginalise and dehumanise Jews…."

Philanthropists donating their money to help art and artists in the UK, but their money isn't wanted – because they're Jewish. This is where we are.

Rod Dreher at the Free Press on the backlash to the new Netflix film about Mary, mother of Jesus: an attempt to de-Judaize Christianity.

Let us stop and consider what a stupid time we live in. It’s an era when people are losing their minds with hatred over the fact that a Jewish actress was cast to play a Jewish woman. Think about that. Then again, antisemitism has never been about actual Jews, has it?

Like a boil on the backside of the body politic, there has been an ugly irruption of Jew-hating foolishness over casting in the upcoming Netflix film Mary, about the life of Jesus’s mother. People are outraged—outraged!—that director D.J. Caruso cast an Israeli Jew, Noa Cohen, to play the title character.

“First Netflix taking all Palestinian content down and now they stream a movie about Mary with an all Israeli cast whilst those same people are bombing the birthplace of Christ? Boycott that shit,” said a Muslim woman in an X post. She added video commentary noting that the choice to film the movie in Morocco and not in Bethlehem—the actual birthplace of Christ—was “diabolical.”

The filmmakers could have shot in Bethlehem had the Palestinian Authority, which controls the town, given their permission. Then again, Israeli citizens like Noa Cohen, who plays Mary, are not allowed into Bethlehem.

…what all authoritative Christian traditions share is an irrevocable, undeniable testimony that God chose the Jewish people to make Himself known to all of humanity, and that without Hebrew Scripture and tradition, the Christian faith would make no sense at all.

So why the controversy over the Mary movie? Why are so many people eager, even desperate, to deny Mary’s Jewishness?

It is clear that partisans for the Palestinian side in the current war wish to do anything they can to delegitimize Israel and Judaism in order to gain credibility for their cause. They understand well that many American Christians, especially evangelicals, sympathize with the Israelis in part because they know their Bible. If they can sever Christianity’s roots from Judaism in the Christian imagination, they reason, they can gain sympathy among followers of Jesus. But to claim the historical Mary as a “Palestinian”—a people and a concept that did not exist at the time of Jesus’s birth—is a malicious anachronism.

Reminder that in the last century the ideological sponsors of Palestinianism – as the ideology that negates Jewish sovereignty in its ancestral land – whether the Nazis, Pan-Arabist or Soviets were all defeated and in the dustbin of history. The Ayatollah regime in Iran is next?

— Dr. Einat Wilf (@EinatWilf) November 30, 2024

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Facts. Only in Israel it’s thriving and growing! pic.twitter.com/0j7TZneXj7

— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) December 1, 2024

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The continuing drive to remove Jews from British life:

More than 600 artists are demanding London’s prestigious Tate Museum cut ties with Jewish donors and arts organizations in the latest of a wave of cultural pressure campaigns targeting Israel-linked philanthropy.

In an open letter to the institution ahead of next month’s Turner Prize ceremony, current nominee Jasleen Kaur joined past winners Charlotte Prodger and Lawrence Abu Hamdan in demanding that Tate sever connections with three major art organizations: the Zabludowicz Art Trust, Zabludowicz Art Projects, and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Their letter cites unsubstantiated claims from the International Court of Justice and United Nations about Israel’s “genocidal” response to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, while accusing the targeted organizations of “artwashing” – a term used to describe partnerships with museums and artists to obscure ethically dubious political connections.

“Tate’s partnerships with these organizations directly undermine its commitment to equality and social impact,” the letter states. “We believe Tate has a profound moral duty, if not a legal one, to divest from its affiliations with the Israeli state.”

The Zabludowicz family’s ties to Israel stem primarily from Poju Zabludowicz’s business dealings.

As CEO of real estate investment firm Tamares Group, he previously funded the British Israel Communication and Research Centre and technology companies with Israeli security contracts.

In 2023, the Zabludowiczes were forced to close their private London museum after facing years of similar anti-Israel pressure.

Britain’s cultural anti-Israel purge has already claimed scalps elsewhere in London’s art scene.

Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art caved to radical student activists last month, severing ties with prominent Jewish philanthropists Candida and Zak Gertler after a targeted campaign against their personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Artwashing. Of course  Like pinkwashing, where Israel's liberal attitude to gays, in marked contrast to their Middle Eastern neighbours, was seen as a cunning plan to whitewash their hideous Jewish oppressiveness. To come: "democracywashing", "freepresswashing", "nobelprizewinningwashing"….

Another report of antisemitism at the BBC, this time from the Telegraph:

A whistleblower has said anti-Semitism at the BBC has become “normalised” and accused the broadcaster of failing to take seriously repeated claims of anti-Semitic behaviour and attitudes within the organisation.

The experienced member of staff, who is Jewish, said they had been forced to endure anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments on a near-daily basis, only for their concerns to be dismissed by managers.

Writing anonymously for The Telegraph, they said: “Anti-Semitism exists in the newsrooms of Britain’s public service broadcaster. It has done for years, and it is alive and well today, refuelled by the events of Oct 7 and after.

“I have experienced it first hand, too much, in my career at the corporation, both before and since the Hamas attacks.”…

They also accuse Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, of failing to get a grip on the problem of anti-Semitism within the corporation, despite his emailing all staff in February to say there was no place for racist abuse of any kind within the BBC.

The whistleblower, who has asked for their identity not to be revealed for fear of being “marked out”, writes: “For Jewish staff, the experience of anti-Semitism and Israel bashing is a daily one and Tim Davies’s statement rings hollow. Actions speak louder than words, and sadly when it comes to anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism at the BBC, its actions practically are mute.”

No surprise, sadly.

On display in Print Sales at the Photographers' Gallery, Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson:

Driven by a sense of extreme urgency, he left the paper to focus on documenting the Arctic’s untold stories before they disappear. Hunting communities in the Arctic are integral to the cultural and social fabric of the North. Having passed down centuries-old traditions, the once-reliable sea ice now shifts unpredictably, reshaping hunting grounds and upending daily life for communities that depend on it. As the younger generation moves away from traditional hunting, Axelsson’s images reveal a world in transition.

Axelsson immerses himself in Arctic communities for weeks, earning the trust and friendship necessary to portray the unguarded realities of their everyday lives. “I write down what people say and how they feel; I try to capture that in their eyes,” Axelsson explains. His work is both a race against time and a profound act of witnessing, as he aims to convey the effects of climate change as a very real presence for these communities, rather than an uncertain future.

[Photos: Ragnar Axelsson]

All but the last three images are from Axelsson's Faces of the North series, first published in 2004. The last three, more recent, are featured in the Photographers' Gallery exhibition.

Previously, Sled Dogs.

There's no other topic that people are so willing to be intellectually dishonest about as this one https://t.co/lI7pDvHXNt

— Helen Joyce (@HJoyceGender) November 30, 2024

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WaPo article here.

Her Wikipedia entry:

Sally Jenkins (born October 11, 1960) is an American sports columnist and feature writer for The Washington Post, and author. She was previously a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. She has won the AP Sports Columnist of the Year Award five times, received the National Press Foundation 2017 chairman citation, and was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. She is the author of a dozen books. Jenkins is noted for her writing on Pat Summitt, Joe Paterno, Lance Armstrong, and the United States Center for SafeSport.

She was a defender of Lance Armstrong even after he admitted doping, so clearly has some history of support for cheating men. Perhaps her glittering career is less about a deep knowledge and love of sport, and more about knowing where the power lies.

But really – "So it’s a step backward for so many women athletes to cry frailty in the debate over trans participation". That's just breath-takingly stupid and offensive. Would flyweight boxers be crying frailty if heavyweights were allowed in the ring against them? 

Today, Russia and Al-Assad’s army are bombing Aleppo.

Let’s not forget that Assad is already responsible for around 500,000 deaths in the Syrian civil war.

So, how many protests do you think we’ll see on university campuses? pic.twitter.com/5AAIgUN7VA

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) November 30, 2024

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