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James Taylor - October Road -

An incomplete "there's a good chance the icon you love and support is a Zionist" list

🌟 Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish Holocaust survivor, whose family was murdered during it. Lemkin is responsible for coining the term "genocide," and for every legal provision that exists today against it. His work against genocide was inspired by his Zionism.

🌟 Martin Luther King, Jr., who did not only support Israel and its right to security, a fellow participant at a dinner with MLK shortly before his assassination quotes him as having stopped a student attacking Zionism, and replied, "When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking antisemitism." He also encouraged Americans in 1967 to support the Jewish state, as Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran, endangering Israeli citizens by cutting the country off from its oil supply.

🌟 Emma Lazarus, a Jewish American poet, whose words ("Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free") are engraved on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal, after they helped raise the money needed for its completion. Drawing from the value of Jewish solidarity, she also wrote, "Until we are all free, we are none of us free," adopted as a slogan by intersectionality (while many in the movement exclude Jews from it). She was a great supporter of establishing a state for Jews in the Jewish homeland, having argued for this idea years before the word "Zionist" was even coined.

🌟 The 14th Dalai Lama, the leader of the fight against the occupation of Tibet, who was invited in 1994 to Israel, at a time when China's communist regime did its best to prevent his visits anywhere in the world, and who came to Israel more than once, talking about the 2000 years long Zionism of Jewish culture in exile as an inspiration and role model for Tibetans. "Among Tibetan refugees, we are always saying to ourselves that we must learn the Jewish secret to keep our traditions, in some cases under hostile circumstances."

🌟 Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who spoke more than once about how her pursuit of justice is a continuation of that very same thing in Jewish tradition. She had repeatedly referred to American Zionist Jews as sources of inspiration. For example, in 2018, during her fifth visit to Israel, in a speech she gave when receiving the Genesis Award, she mentioned two such women, Emma Lazarus and Henrietta Szold.

🌟 Nelson Mandela had an ambivalent view of Israel, but repeatedly recognized its right to exist, which makes him a Zionist, he also called upon Arab states to do the same, and was favorable towards the Zionist Jews who supported him during his underground days. Mandela being critical of Israel and still a Zionist is an apt reminder that criticizing the Jewish state and opposing its very existence are NOT the same thing, and only one's antisemitic.

🌟 Felix Salten, the Jewish author of Bambi (the book Disney's movie is based on). The tale was originally a metaphor for Jews suffering antisemitism, something Salten personally had to cope with. He was also an ardent Zionist, feeling the self-liberation at the core of this ideology suited his idea of how to deal with Jew hatred.

🌟 Sun Yat-Sen, who helped end the rule of China's last imperial dynasty, was its first provisional president, and is nowadays honored as an important Chinese leader in both China and Taiwan (sometimes referred to as "Father of the Chinese Nation"). He was an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism. Among other instances of expressing that, he wrote in a 1920 letter to a leader of the Jewish community in Shang Hai about Zionism that it is, "one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of Democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserves an honorable place in the family of nations."

🌟 Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish sexologist, nicknamed among other things "The Einstein of Sex" and "The Father of Gay Liberation," because his medical and scientific work on human sexuality, as well as social advocacy for women's, gay and trans rights, was nothing short of pioneering. He was persecuted by the Nazis to the point where he died in exile. They broke into his institute of sexual research, where the world's first clinic performing sex reassignments surgeries was located, and burned down the institute's library. Hirschfeld had attended a Zionist conference following the Balfor Declaration of 1917, and his work on sexual liberation found inspiration in young socialist Jewish Zionist workers he met during a visit to the Land of Israel in 1931-2.

🌟 Marcia Langton, a professor and prominent Aboriginal rights activist from Australia, who has been leading the fight against racism and for her community. She spoke out against the hijacking of native rights movements by terrorist sympathizers and antisemites, and has clearly stood against all loss of life, including that of Israelis.

🌟 Felix Zandman, a Holocaust survivor whose work on resistors is integrated into many smartphones, laptops, cars, satellites, hospital ventilators (saving many Covid patients), airplanes and more. Whenever the anti-Israel crowd is scrolling social media on their phones, they're enjoying the work of a Zionist, who enthusiastically supported the State of Israel, and even introduced an important improvement to the Israeli Merkava tank, which has likely saved many Israeli lives, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, and others like him, since Israel's high tech is considered only second to Silicon Valley (going back to at least the 1990's). If they truly wish to boycott everything that's been "contaminated" by Zionism, they should probably just boycott technology.

🌟 Rosa Parks, an African American leader of the civil rights movement (and someone who personally demonstrated how one can resist without turning violent). She was one of 200 notable black American leaders who publicly organized to express their support and respect of Zionism as the Jewish right to self-determination, and Israel as the manifestation of that right.

-> Like I said, this is VERY incomplete, even just in terms of how the overwhelming majority of Jews are Zionist, and have been since the inception of Judaism, which is itself Zionist. Over the years, this led to many non-Jewish human and native rights champions to be supportive of Zionism, too. Take note of who is being vilified, when the term "Zionist" is ignorantly used as if it means anything other than belief in the equal right of Jews to liberation and self-determination in the Jewish ancestral land. Especially when it is used as being inherently evil.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

When self awareness hits

(Source)

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today the annual selection of 25 motion pictures that have been inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress because of their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance.  This year’s titles range from the Disney animated blockbuster “The Lion King” and the seminal coming-of-age drama “The Breakfast Club” to the 1990 documentary “Paris Is Burning,” chronicling the pageantry of drag balls in New York City, and a collection of home movies showcasing African-American life in Oklahoma during the 1920s.

“Motion pictures document our history and culture and serve as a mirror of our collective experiences,” said Hayden.  “The National Film Registry embraces the richness and diversity of film as an art form and celebrates the people who create the magic of cinema.”

Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names to the National Film Registry 25 motion pictures that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant.  The films must be at least 10 years old.  The Librarian makes the annual registry selections after conferring with the distinguished members of the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) and a cadre of Library specialists.  Thousands of public nominations are also considered. Nominations for next year will be accepted through the fall at loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/nominate/.

In addition to advising the Librarian of Congress on the annual selection of titles to the National Film Registry, the board also provides counsel on national preservation planning policy. In that capacity, it issued the following statement: “The National Film Preservation Board continued to focus much of its attention this year on the recognition of photochemical film as a distinct medium. Emerging digital technologies offer many alternative opportunities in capture and exhibition, but the board encourages the preservation of film on film.  It also applauds those efforts in education and exhibition that stimulate an appreciation of the work of the archives in preserving our classic cinema.  Film remains the best existing archival medium and the board encourages archives and rights-holders to continue to preserve titles on film as they have done in the past.”

Spanning the period 1903 to 1998, the films named to this year’s registry include Hollywood blockbusters, documentaries, silent movies, animation, shorts, independent and experimental motion pictures. The 2016 selections bring the number of films in the registry to 700, which is a small fraction of the Library’s vast moving-image collection of 1.3 million items.

The silent films selected this year include the 1903 technical marvel “Life of an American Fireman”; the 1912 “Musketeers of Pig Alley,” directed by D. W. Griffith and considered the first gangster film; the 1916 “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” touted as the first submarine photoplay; and a comedy starring Buster Keaton, “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” Also in this category is a collection of home movies, produced by Baptist minister and businessman Solomon Sir Jones. The films showcase a rich tapestry of African-American communities in Oklahoma from 1924 to 1928.

In 2013, the Library of Congress released a report that conclusively determined that 70 percent of the nation’s silent feature films have been lost forever and only 14 percent exist in their original 35 mm format.

Films Selected for the 2016 National Film Registry

Atomic Cafe (1982)

Ball of Fire (1941)

Beau Brummels, The (1928)

Birds, The (1963)

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

Breakfast Club, The (1985)

Decline of Western Civilization, The (1981)

East of Eden (1955)

Funny Girl (1968)

Life of an American Fireman (1903)

Lion King, The (1994)

Lost Horizon (1937)

Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)

Paris Is Burning (1990)

Point Blank (1967)

Princess Bride, The (1987)

Putney Swope (1969)

Rushmore (1998)

Solomon Sir Jones films (1924-28)

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

Suzanne, Suzanne (1982)

Thelma & Louise (1991)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916)

Walk in the Sun, A (1945)

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Good morning y'all. How many of y'all remember this? This is how we started each day at school. We said the pledge of alligance every morning and said a prayer before school started. We need this back in our schools today.

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