Supreme Court nominee panders to Israhell, and gets called an "anti-semite"

[yankeedoodle]

This Black woman says the case that "moved" her the most involved a Black sect based in Israhell.  We can suppose that judges, from time to time, handle cases of extreme importance - even life or death - and this woman can only remember a case involving vegan recipes from a Black sect in Israhell.    
She knows who she's working for, doesn't she.   

Some conservatives confuse Black 'Israelite' sects in labeling Ketanji Brown Jackson as soft on antisemitism
https://www.jta.org/2022/03/23/politics/conservatives-confuse-black-israelite-sects-in-labeling-ketanji-brown-jackson-as-soft-on-antisemitism

Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked to describe a case she tried as a judge that moved her. She cited one that involved a Black sect with a base in Israel, one that Israel's foreign ministry has credited with enhancing its public diplomacy.

That didn't stop some conservatives on Twitter from claiming erroneously that Jackson had embraced an antisemitic cult. They cited a conservative website that ran a very brief clip without context suggesting she was referring to a separate, antisemitic sect.

President Joe Biden's nominee to the Supreme Court, during her third day of her Senate confirmation hearings, came under friendly questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who is Jewish. Feinstein said she would better understand how Jackson would function as a Supreme Court justice if she described a case that moved her.

Jackson chose a trademark infringement case she tried in 2016 that demonstrated to her the personal impact of laws that otherwise seem "dry and technical."

A former member of the African Hebrew Israelite community had taken over one of the sect's Everlasting Life vegan restaurants in the Washington D.C. area, and the sect sued him for trademark infringement. Jackson ruled for the sect, and in her Senate testimony she described the pain she perceived among its members at seeing the name of their restaurant and its recipes wrested from the sect's control.

"They all knew each other and the testimony about what it meant to them to have one of their members ejected in this way and then have him turn on them was very, very moving in the courtroom," Jackson said. "So even though we were talking about this kind of arcane area of the law, it was real circumstances that were happening."

It was Jackson's warm descriptions of the sect that outraged segments of conservative Twitter. Townhall, a far-right website, extracted 21 seconds of her testimony and posted it on Twitter, saying only "Judge Jackson just mentioned the 'African Hebrew Israelites, calling them 'a cultural community around healthy living.'"

A number of tweeters immediately seized on the abbreviated Townhall post to suggest that Jackson was soft-pedaling a separate, radical group that has been labeled a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. A member of the offshoot was involved in the deadly 2019 shooting at a kosher supermarket in New Jersey.

Among those amplifying the error, and the criticism, were Ben Domenech, co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative news and opinion site; Greg Price, a conservative political strategist, and Twitchy, a conservative news site. Domenech alone has over 176,000 followers.

The African Hebrew Israelite group in the case Jackson tried has nothing to do with the antisemitic offshoots, although they share roots in a late 19th century movement in which some Blacks embraced Judaism or aspects of it.

The group Jackson referred to maintains communities in three towns in southern Israel, descended from a number of African Americans who arrived in Israel from Chicago, via Liberia, in the late 1960s. In the community's first years, relations with the Israeli authorities were tense, but the community eventually integrated into the country.

Israel's Foreign Ministry dedicates a web page to the group, and says, "Today, community spokespersons are effective contributors to the national public relations effort, speaking to audiences on behalf of the State of Israel."

One of the named plaintiffs in the case Jackson tried, Immanuel Ben Yehuda, lives in Israel and leads tours of the country for Black Americans and Africans, aimed in part at countering negative impressions of Israel. In a 2020 interview with i24, the Israeli news station, he described working with Israel's foreign ministry to bring African leaders to the country.

The visits "paved the way for these recent years and better relations across Africa in particular, because we were bringing African leaders here for years for decades, giving them a reason to support Israel," he said. He also described bringing over Black American celebrities including the late Whitney Houston and Stevie Wonder. StandWithUs, the pro-Israel group, promoted the interview on its Facebook page.

"We are in a unique position, I think to improve Israel's standing in the global community," Immanuel said.

[yankeedoodle]

What a surprise!

Ketanji Brown Jackson brings up a Black-Jewish civil rights alliance in confirmation hearing
https://www.jta.org/2022/03/22/politics/ketanji-brown-jackson-brings-up-a-black-jewish-civil-rights-alliance-in-confirmation-hearing

Whether he meant to or not, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz gave Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee, an opportunity for a breather in the middle of a contentious day of confirmation hearings on Tuesday.

Cruz, who spent most of his 30-minute questioning session trying to corner Jackson on issues such as critical race theory, asked what Jackson meant when she says she praises the "social justice" values that are exemplified by the private school her children attend.

In her response, Jackson said she was proud to serve as a board member — and opened up about the school's origins as a Jewish-Black civil rights alliance.

"Georgetown Day School has a special history that I think is important to understand when you consider my service on that board," Jackson told Cruz.

She went on:

The school was founded in 1945 in Washington, D.C., at a time at which by law there was racial segregation in this community. Black students were not allowed in the public schools to go to school with white students. Georgetown Day School is a private school, that was created when three white families — Jewish families — got together with three Black families and said that despite the fact that the law is set up to make sure that Black children are not treated the same as everyone else, we are going to form a private school so that our children can go to school together. The idea of equality — justice — is at the core of the Georgetown Day School mission.

Georgetown Day School's history page on its website notes that it was founded in 1945 by seven — not six — families, and that it was the first integrated school in the nation's capital, but does not add detail.

There appear to be at least three Jewish, or partly Jewish, families involved in its founding: Edith Nash (née Rosenfels), who was a Jewish poet married to Philleo Nash, an anthropologist and a senior official in Democratic administrations, whose daughters attended the school; the parents of Arthur Goldschmidt, who became a noted scholar of Middle East history; and the parents of Judith Martin (née Perlman) who launched the famed "Miss Manners" etiquette column.

https://twitter.com/civilrightsorg/status/1506349679281377292?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1506349679281377292%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jta.org%2F2022%2F03%2F22%2Fpolitics%2Fketanji-brown-jackson-brings-up-a-black-jewish-civil-rights-alliance-in-confirmation-hearing

The school sustained a Jewish flavor. Nash, who went on to become the school's second director, once recalled that in the 1950s, the school had an annual Seder Lunch, a parent-student event to mark Passover. Next month, the school's calendar features Passover Freedom Assemblies for the entire lower and middle schools.

The school's most influential director, Gladys Stern, who led the establishment from 1975-1996, was also Jewish.

The school, which is on spring break, did not return a request for comment.

On Monday, the first day of her testimony, Jackson credited her Jewish high school debate coach, the late Fran Berger, with instilling her with confidence and making her believe she could succeed as a lawyer. Jackson also credited Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who is Jewish, for whom she clerked and whom she would replace.