Dark Money Groups Are Pushing Disinformation to Downplay the Overturn of “Roe”

Abortion-rights protesters march around the Indiana Statehouse building during a demonstration on July 25, 2022, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

JEREMY HOGAN / SOPA IMAGES/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES

BY Alyssa Bowen, 

Truthout

August 3, 2022

As underscored by Kansas voters’ resounding decision this week to reject right-wing efforts to strip abortion rights from their state constitution, the deadly overturn of Roe v. Wade is wildly unpopular among many voters across the country.

But the same right-wing groups that helped to capture the Supreme Court — backed by ultra-wealthy donors they keep secret from the public — are working overtime to convince us that the overturn of Roe isn’t as dangerous as so many of us know it to be. Using dark money, they are mobilizing to reframe and cover over this anti-democratic, Christian-right coordinated effort to dominate our political system.

The far right faction of the Supreme Court that handed down the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe was put in place by a massive dark money web coordinated by Federalist Society fundraiser and right-wing Catholic lawyer Leonard Leo. His network has raised nearly $600 million in secret funding since 2014, not counting the past year. Leo himself hand-selected for Donald Trump three of the five justices that ruled to overturn Roe, and worked to get the others installed on the court. All the while, his affiliated dark money groups worked intensively to push the Trump nominees onto the bench, despite widespread and deep concerns about their fitness to be judges.

Leo predicted the success of his agenda in a speech to funders of the secretive Christian-right Council for National Policy in reversing precedents and turning back Americans’ rights to the pre-New Deal/robber baron era. He bragged that “no one in this room has probably experienced the kind of transformation that I think we are beginning to see” in rulings by the court.

Leo’s network cannot be entirely separated from the dark money web of fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch, who is a major funder of the Federalist Society and many of the groups that have filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court this term and in previous terms. Koch’s Americans for Prosperity organization spent millions to support the confirmation of Trump appointees, including Amy Coney Barrett, the daughter of a man who worked for decades as a fossil fuel industry lawyer. It’s no great mystery why. Koch’s company, Koch Industries, will likely reap untold billions from decisions favoring the carbon industry, like the reactionary edict recently handed down by the Court’s right-wing faction in West Virginia v. EPA.

Some of the same dark money groups that helped overturn Roe have their sights set on attacking other fundamental rights. At the same time, however, some of the groups belonging to these dark money networks are strategically attempting to market bogus ideas to the public that downplay the severity of the overturn of Roe, even as it will result in a wave of forced births and maternal deaths. Here are some of the bogus claims they’re trying to push:

Bogus Claim #1: The Overturn of Roe Won’t Hurt Anyone

Research has shown that abortion bans, like those that went into immediate effect in 22 states following the overturn of Roe, could lead to a 21 percent increase in pregnancy-related deaths in a country that already has one of the highest mortality rates in the industrialized world.Some of the same dark money groups that helped overturn Roe have their sights set on attacking other fundamental rights.

Yet, dark money actors like Erin Hawley — an anti-abortion zealot who is co-counsel for the anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in its legal assault on Roe — are being given national platforms to convince the public otherwise. Hawley recently testified as the GOP minority witness on the impact of Roe’s overturn before the Senate Oversight and Reform Committee where she peddled disinformation.

One example was her medically false claim that abortions for nonviable ectopic pregnancies are not abortions. She also claimed that women and other pregnant people will not be harmed by being forced to carry a pregnancy to term, even though doing so is riskier than an abortion. Moreover, Hawley ignores the psychological harm that would be done to rape victims forced to carry their pregnancy to term, the economic harm done to those who would otherwise choose to abort a pregnancy, the harm done to those forced to stay tied to abusers due to a forced pregnancy, and many other harms.

Hawley, who is married to insurrectionist Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), has taken in $617,000 from the Koch-funded Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), where she is a legal fellow. IWF and its sister organization have received more than $5 million from Leo’s dark money network since 2014. Hawley’s other employer, ADF, also received six-figure Koch funding, according to the most recent IRS filings.

Meanwhile, right-wing dark money actors are working to discredit the horrific implications of the reversal of Roe. Perhaps the best-known example is the effort by dark money groups to discredit the true story about the 10-year-old rape victim who was forced by the Ohio abortion ban (that went into effect after the overturn of Roe) to travel to Indiana where abortions are still legal.

Right-wing pundits, like IWF fellow Emily Jashinsky, threw doubt onto the veracity of the story that was published by the well-established Indianapolis Star paper. (The Washington Post also questioned the story.)

The story was quickly proven true, but despite the veracity of this and other cases where lives were endangered by abortion restrictions, Christian-right reactionaries are denying any harm is being done by the bans. Alexandra DeSanctis Marr, a visiting fellow at the dark money Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), which has also received funding from the Koch fortune and Leo network, accused “abortion supporters” of inventing “horrifying hypotheticals” to undermine abortion restrictions.

This appears to be an attempt both to deny reality and chill accurate reporting about the dystopian reality of post-Roe life. (Notably, EPPC’s senior fellow Ed Whelan promoted his own wild conspiracy theories about Christine Blasey Ford in his support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation.)

Bogus Claim #2: Anti-Choice Zealots Will Secure Comprehensive Aid for People Forced to Give Birth

Some dark money court capture groups also appear to be trying to salvage the reputation of the GOP and the Christian nationalist movement by claiming they will secure aid for people forced to give birth against their will. Going into the midterms, the GOP’s strategy appears to center on fomenting a culture war in which it claims to be the party of “parental rights,” even as it blocks people from choosing abortion and determining if and when they become parents. Its legislative leaders have also repeatedly blocked popular, common-sense measures like comprehensive paid family and medical leave, increased child care access and credits, and expanded access to health care.Research has shown that abortion bans could lead to a 21 percent increase in pregnancy-related deaths.

Since Roe was overturned, various GOP politicians have rushed to announce proposals that are promoted as “pro-parent” or “pro-woman.” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life (SBA), a powerful anti-abortion group, even sent a memo to GOP lawmakers with talking points urging them to “demonstrate that the pro-life movement cares not only about the unborn child but about the mother as well.” (SBA spent big backing all of Trump’s extreme Supreme Court nominees who were hand-picked by Leo, and Leo’s network has contributed millions to SBA in recent years.)

One example of such posturing is the “earned leave” bill of Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), which was reintroduced the same day that Roe was overturned. A “messaging” bill peddled by the Independent Women’s Forum, it is intended to provide a right-wing alternative to paid family and medical leave. In reality, it would punish parents by acting as a loan from Social Security to take time to care for their newborn or newly adopted child, which would force them to retire later or take a lifelong cut to their retirement benefits if they cannot pay back the loan sooner. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Rubio’s plan would even require the Social Security system to “claw back any leave benefits that haven’t been repaid from retirement checks — say because the beneficiary died before reaching retirement or before the full amount was repaid.”

Unlike IWF’s messaging bill, the progressive paid Family and Medical Leave proposal is not a loan and does not borrow from Social Security. Moreover, it provides access to financial support not only to those caring for new children, but also in situations where a parent, child, spouse or oneself becomes seriously ill.

Some of the dark money-funded anti-choice groups are also trying to rebrand “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are well known for spreading anti-abortion disinformation and otherwise pressuring those seeking abortions to continue the pregnancy, as “pregnancy help” centers.

Answering such calls, a coalition of anti-abortion groups — including the Leo-tied Students for Life, the Koch-funded Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Koch-funded Turning Point USA — will host a virtual event this month highlighting all of the “free services” pregnancy crisis centers offer, such as free ultrasounds (which are often used to pressure women out of abortions), “parenting programs” and “sexual risk avoidance education,” which is more widely known as abstinence-only education.

Notably, Senator Hawley introduced the “Pregnancy Resource Center Defense Act,” which would make it a felony crime to deface “pregnancy centers.” ADF and Erin Hawley promoted that bill. By contrast, Senator Hawley has taken no steps to hold accountable those who defaced the Capitol, including urinating and defecating in its halls and causing millions in damage, and has even fundraised off of his fist pump in support of the insurrectionists.

Bogus Claim #3: Dobbs Isn’t Part of a Broader Assault on Our Rights

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life and Students for Life have sought to make abortion illegal nationwide, and leaders of Students for Life and Alliance Defending Freedom have pushed to ban abortion even in the case of rape or incest. But if that weren’t extreme enough, right-wing dark money agents are also trying to convince the public that the outrageously unpopular overturning of Roe is not the beginning of the destruction of other constitutional rights.As right-wing dark money groups try to whitewash the very real and truly dangerous consequences of overturning Roe, it is more important than ever to shine a light on their detrimental efforts.

Heather Higgins, the Vicks VapoRub heiress and chair of IWF (a group launched to defend Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court as he was accused by Anita Hill and others of sexual harassment), has claimed that “the left is deliberately misrepresenting both what conservatives believe and what the Supreme Court said in the Dobbs decision,” as “it in no way affects the availability of safe contraceptives, which GOP voters nearly unanimously see as a good thing.”

Despite Higgins’s claims, the reality is that Justice Thomas made clear that destroying other constitutional rights was his objective. In his concurrence on Dobbs, he argued that Sam Alito’s majority court decision to attack the “right to privacy” doctrine that undergirded Roe means that other constitutional rights, like gay marriage and access to contraception, should also be considered for reversal. The right to privacy also protects interracial marriage from state bans.

Higgins has also publicly attacked the Right to Contraception Act that would create federal protections for birth control, claiming that the bill is about “redefining contraception so broadly that it includes abortion and sterilization.” IWF, a documented pay-to-play group, has tried to position itself as pro-contraception because it has backed Big PhRma’s effort to make birth control pills available over the counter, even though its key leaders and fellows celebrated the Dobbs ruling.

Higgins’s talking point that access to contraceptives is not at risk based on this ruling has been echoed by other anti-abortion zealots, like Students for Life, even though they have attacked the availability of birth control pills and IUDs, taking the position that devices and pills that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg are so-called “abortifacients.” (Notably, this issue came up in the hearings on Kavanaugh’s nomination, because he had accepted a litigant’s argument that the Affordable Care Act could not require businesses to provide employees with access to contraceptives that it believed to be abortifacients, which would limit constitutional protection for the most effective forms of birth control.) The overwhelming majority of Americans strongly support protecting access to birth control pills and devices like IUDs.

As right-wing dark money groups try to whitewash the very real and truly dangerous consequences of overturning Roe, it is more important than ever to shine a light on their detrimental efforts to invalidate Americans’ concerns about abortion access and the likelihood that this is only the beginning of the right-wing efforts to turn back our rights.

Note: True North Research Executive Director Lisa Graves and fellow Ansev Demirhan contributed to this report.

Alyssa Bowen received her Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is managing editor and senior researcher for the progressive watchdog group True North Research where she tracks and writes about dark money in U.S. politics. She has bylines in The Nation, Rewire New Group and Ms. Magazine and is a regular contributor to Truthout.

Biden’s Assassination of al-Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri Was Illegal

President Joe Biden speaks from the Blue Room balcony of the White House on August 1, 2022, in Washington, D.C.JIM WATSON / GETTY IMAGES

BY Marjorie Cohn, 

Truthout

August 6, 2022

PART OF THE SERIES
Human Rights and Global Wrongs

President Joe Biden’s assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan was illegal under both U.S. and international law. After the CIA drone strike killed Zawahiri on August 2, Biden declared, “People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.” What we should fear instead is the dangerous precedent set by Biden’s unlawful extrajudicial execution.

In addition to being illegal, the killing of Zawahiri also occurred in a moment when the United Nations had already determined that people in the U.S. had little to fear from him. As a United Nations report released in July concluded, “Al Qaeda is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment.”

Just as former president Barack Obama stated that “Justice has been done” after he assassinated Osama bin Laden, Biden said, “Now justice has been delivered” when he announced the assassination of Zawahiri.

Retaliation, however, does not constitute justice.

Targeted, or political, assassinations are extrajudicial executions. They are deliberate and unlawful killings meted out by order of, or with acquiescence of, a government. Extrajudicial executions are implemented outside a judicial framework.

The fact that Zawahiri did not pose an imminent threat is precisely why his assassination was illegal.

Zawahiri’s Assassination Violated International Law

Extrajudicial executions are prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the United States has ratified, making it part of U.S. law under the Constitution’s supremacy clause. Article 6 of the ICCPR states, “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” In its interpretation of Article 6, The UN Human Rights Committee opined that all human beings are entitled to the protection of the right to life “without distinction of any kind, including for persons suspected or convicted of even the most serious crimes.”

“Outside the context of active hostilities, the use of drones or other means for targeted killing is almost never likely to be legal,” tweeted Agnès Callamard, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. “Intentionally lethal or potentially lethal force can only be used where strictly necessary to protect against an imminent threat to life.” In order to be lawful, the United States would need to demonstrate that the target “constituted an imminent threat to others,” Callamard said.Extrajudicial executions are prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the United States has ratified, making it part of U.S. law .

Moreover, willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act. A targeted killing is lawful only when deemed necessary to protect life, and no other means (including apprehension or nonlethal incapacitation) is available to protect life.

Zawahiri’s Assassination Violated U.S. Law

The drone strike that killed Zawahiri also violated the War Powers Resolution, which lists three situations in which the president can introduce U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities:

First, pursuant to a congressional declaration of war, which has not occurred since World War II. Second, in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.” (Zawahiri’s presence in Afghanistan more than 20 years after the September 11, 2001, attacks did not constitute a “national emergency.”) Third, when there is “specific statutory authorization,” such as an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF).Willful killing is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions, punishable as a war crime under the U.S. War Crimes Act.

In 2001, Congress adopted an AUMF that authorized the president to use military force against individuals, groups and countries that had contributed to the 9/11 attacks “in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”

Zawahiri was one of a small circle of people widely believed to have planned the 2001 hijacking of four airplanes, three of which were flown into the Pentagon and World Trade Center buildings. But since he did not pose “an immediate international threat” before the U.S. targeted him for assassination, he should have been arrested and brought to justice in accordance with the law.

The attack against Zawahiri violated Obama’s targeting rules, which required that the target pose a “continuing imminent threat.” Although Donald Trump relaxed Obama’s rules, Biden is conducting a secret review to establish his own standards for targeting killing.

Biden Continues to Launch Illegal Drone Strikes

In spite of the Biden administration’s claim that no civilians were killed during the strike on Zawahiri, there has been no independent evidence to support that assertion.

The assassination of Zawahiri came nearly a year after Biden launched an illegal strike as he withdrew U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Ten civilians were killed in that attack. The U.S. Central Command admitted the strike was “a tragic mistake” after an extensive New York Times investigation put a lie to the prior U.S. declaration that it was a “righteous strike.”The attack against Zawahiri violated Obama’s targeting rules, which required that the target pose a “continuing imminent threat.”

Biden declared that although he was withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan, he would mount “over-the-horizon” attacks from outside the country even without troops on the ground. We can expect the Biden administration to conduct future illegal drone strikes that kill civilians.

The 2001 AUMF has been used to justify U.S. military actions in 85 countries. Congress must repeal it and replace it with a new AUMF specifically requiring that any use of force comply with U.S. obligations under international law.

In addition, Congress should revisit the War Powers Resolution and explicitly limit the president’s authority to use force to that which is necessary to repel a sudden or imminent attack.

Finally, the United States must end its “global war on terror” once and for all. Drone strikes terrorize and kill countless civilians and make us more vulnerable to terrorism.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio.

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

From chatbots and understanding to appliance repair and statistical practice

Posted on August 6, 2022 

by Andrew

A couple months ago we talked about some extravagant claims made by Google engineer Blaise Agüera y Arcas, who pointed toward the impressive behavior of a chatbot and argued that its activities “do amount to understanding, in any falsifiable sense.” Arcas gets to the point of saying, “None of the above necessarily implies that we’re obligated to endow large language models with rights, legal or moral personhood, or even the basic level of care and empathy with which we’d treat a dog or cat,” a disclaimer that just reinforces his position, in that he’s even considering that it might make sense to “endow large language models with rights, legal or moral personhood”—after all, he’s only saying that we’re not “necessarily . . . obligated” to give these rights. It sounds like he’s thinking that giving such rights to a computer program is a live possibility.

Economist Gary Smith posted a skeptical response, first showing how bad a chatbot will perform if it’s not trained or tuned in some way, and more generally saying, “Using statistical patterns to create the illusion of human-like conversation is fundamentally different from understanding what is being said.”

I’ll get back to Smith’s point at the end of this post. First I want to talk about something else, which is how we use Google for problem solving.

The other day one of our electronic appliances wasn’t working. I went online and searched on the problem and I found several forums where the topic was brought up and a solution was offered. Lots of different solutions, but none of them worked for me. I next searched to find a pdf of the owner’s manual. I found it, but again it didn’t have the information to solve the problem. I then went to the manufacturer’s website which had a chat line—I guess it was a real person but it could’ve been a chatbot, because what it did was send me thru a list of attempted solutions and then when none worked the conclusion was that the appliance was busted.

What’s my point here? First, I don’t see any clear benefit here from having convincing human-like interaction here. If it’s a chatbot, I don’t want it to pass the Turing test, I’d rather be aware it’s a chatbot as this will allow me to use it more effectively. Second, for many problems, the solution strategy that humans use is superficial, just trying to fix the problem without understanding it. With modern technology, computers become more like humans, and humans become more like computers in how they solve problems.

I don’t want to overstate that last point. For example, in drug development it’s my impression that the best research is very much based on understanding, not just throwing a zillion possibilities at a disease and seeing what works but directly engineering something that grabs onto the proteins or whatever. And, sure, if I really wanted to fix my appliance it would be best to understand exactly what’s going on. It’s just that in many cases it’s easier to solve the problem, or to just buy a replacement, than to figure out what’s happening internally.

How people do statistics

And then it struck me . . . this is how most people do statistics, right? You have a problem you want to solve; there’s a big mass of statistical methods out there, loosely sorted into various piles (“Bayesian,” “machine learning,” “econometrics,” “robust statistics,” “classification,” “Gibbs sampler,” “Anova,” “exact tests,” etc.); you search around in books or the internet or ask people what method might work for your problem; you look for an example similar to yours and see what methods they used there; you keep trying until you succeed, that is, finding a result that is “statistically significant” and makes sense.

This strategy won’t always work—sometimes the data don’t produce any useful answer, just as in my example above, sometimes the appliance is just busted—but I think this is a standard template for applied statistics. And if nothing comes out, then, sure, you do a new experiment or whatever. Anywhere other than the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, the computer of Michael Lacour, and the trunk of Diederik Stapel’s car, we understand that success is never guaranteed.

Trying things without fully understanding them, just caring about what works: this strategy makes a lot of sense. Sure, I might be a better user of my electronic appliance if I better understood how it worked, but really I just want to use it and not be bothered by it. Similarly, researchers want to make progress in medicine, or psychology, or economics, or whatever: statistics is a means to an end for them, as it generally should be.

Unfortunately, as we’ve discussed many times, the try-things-until-something-works strategy has issues. It can be successful for the immediate goal of getting a publishable result and building a scientific career, while failing in the larger goal of advancing science.

Why is it that I’m ok with the keep-trying-potential-solutions-without-trying-to-really-understand-the-problem method for appliance repair but not for data analysis? The difference, I think, is that appliance repair has a clear win condition but data analysis doesn’t. If the appliance works, it works, and we’re done. If the data analysis succeeds in the sense of giving a “statistically significant” and explainable result, this is not necessarily a success or “discovery” or replicable finding.

It’s a kind of principal-agent problem. In appliance repair, the principal and agent coincide; in scientific research, not so much.

Now to get back to the AI chatbot thing:

– For appliance repair, you don’t really need understanding. All you need is a search engine that will supply enough potential solutions that will either either solve your problem or allow you to be ok with giving up.

– For data analysis, you do need understanding. Not a deep understanding, necessarily, but some sort of model of what’s going on. A “chatbot” won’t do the job.

But, can a dumb chatbot be helpful in data analysis? Sure. Indeed, I use google to look up R functions all the time, and sometimes I use google to look up Stan functions! The point is that some sort of model of the world is needed, and the purpose of the chatbot is to give us tools to attain that understanding.

At this point you might feel that I’m leaving a hostage to fortune. I’m saying that data analysis requires understanding and that existing software tools (including R and Stan) are just a way to aim for that. But what happens 5 or 10 or 15 years in the future when a computer program appears that can do an automated data analysis . . . then will I say it has true understanding? I don’t know, but I might say that the automated analysis is there to facilitate true understanding from the user.

More chatbot interactions

I played around with GPT-3 myself and I kept asking questions and getting reasonable, human-sounding responses. So I sent a message to Gary Smith:


As you know, GPT-3 seems to have been upgraded, and now it works well on those questions you gave it. Setting aside the question of whether the program has “understanding” (I’d say No to that), I’m just wondering, do you think it now will work well on new questions? It’s hard for me to come up with queries, but you seem to be good at that!

I’m asking because I’m writing a short post on chatbots and understanding, and I wanted to get a sense of how good these chatbots are now. I’m not particularly interested in the Turing-test thing, but it would be interesting to see if GPT-3 gives better responses now to new questions? And for some reason I have difficulty coming up with inputs that could test it well. Thanks in advance.

Smith replied:


I tried several questions and here are screenshots of every question and answer. I only asked each question once. I used davinci-002, which I believe is the most powerful version of GPT-3.

My [Smith’s] takeaways are:

1. Remarkably fluent, but has a lot of trouble with distinguishing between meaningless and meaningful correlations, which is the point I am going to push in my Turing test piece. Being “a fluent spouter of bullshit” [a term from Ernie Davis and Gary Marcus] doesn’t mean that we can trust blackbox algorithms to make decisions.

2. It handled two Winograd schema questions (axe/tree and trophy/suitcase) well. I don’t know if this is because these questions are part of the text they have absorbed or if they were hand coded.

3. They often punt (“There’s no clear connection between the two variables, so it’s tough to say.”) when the answer is obvious to humans.

4. They have trouble with unusual situations: Human: Who do you predict would win today if the Brooklyn Dodgers played a football game against Preston North End? AI: It’s tough to say, but if I had to guess, I’d say the Brooklyn Dodgers would be more likely to win.

The Brooklyn Dodgers example reminds me of those WW2 movies where they figure out who’s the German spy by tripping him up with baseball questions.

Smith followed up:


A few more popped into my head. Again a complete accounting. Some remarkably coherent answers. Some disappointing answers to unusual questions:



I like that last bit: “I’m not sure if you can improve your test scores by studying after taking the test, but it couldn’t hurt to try!” That’s the kind of answer that will get you tenure at Cornell.

Anyway, the point here is not to slam GPT-3 for not working miracles. Rather, it’s good to see where it fails to understand its limitations and how to improve it and similar systems.

To return to the main theme of this post, the question of what the computer program can “understand” is different from the question of whether the program can fool us with a “Turing test” is different from the question of whether the program can be useful as a chatbot.This entry was posted in Miscellaneous Statistics by Andrew. Bookmark the permalink.

Scientist Involved in Putin’s Hypersonic Missile Project Arrested on Charges of Treason

By: News Desk
News18.com
Last Updated: AUGUST 06, 2022, 
Moscow


Russian scientist Andrei Shiplyuk who headed the top-secret hypersonic missile project of Vladimir Putin was arrested on charges of treason (Image: Reuters)

Shiplyuk is the third scientist after Anatoly Maslov and Dmitry Kolker to be arrested on charges of treasonFollow us:
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ARussian scientist, Andrei Shiplyuk, who may have been involved in Russian president Vladimir Putin’s top-secret hypersonic missiles was arrested for treason in Siberia, the Telegraph UK reported.

Shiplyuk was the chief of the hypersonics laboratory at the Novosibirsk Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. In recent years, he also coordinated research to develop hypersonic missile systems.

The Novosibirsk Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics is the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He is the third top Russian scientist from Novosibirsk to be arrested in the past one and a half months.

The other two scientists who were arrested were - Anatoly Maslov and Dmitry Kolker. These two were accused of passing state secrets to China.

Dmitry Kolker was flown to Lefortovo interrogation centre in Moscow where he died two days later as he was receiving treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer in Novosibirsk.

Following the arrest of Shiplyuk, his apartment was searched by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). Shiplyuk was a career scientist, who worked his way to the top. He was appointed director of the Russian Academy of Science’s Institute in Novosibirsk in 2015.

Vasily Fomin, head of the Institute, confirmed that Shiplyuk was arrested on charges of treason. “He was arrested. He is charged with the same thing as Maslov, treason,” Fomin said.

Reporters also found that Shiplyuk discussed on online forums coating for hypersonic missiles and also how to update the Russian military in its Army 2020 project. There was a photo where Shiplyuk was seen posing next to a tank.

Shiplyuk was transferred to Moscow’s Lefortovo prison like his other colleagues. Critics of Russian president Vladimir Putin accuse him of arresting scientists on the basis of unfounded paranoia.

Treason in Russia is punishable by twenty years in prison.

Russia’s war against Ukraine continues and Putin in a show of power has tested the new hypersonic Zircon anti-aircraft carrier missile. He claims it is unstoppable and also said that another missile, the Satan-2 armed with 14 warheads, is being developed. Putin claims it is the world’s most dangerous weapon.

Amnesty International’s claims of Ukrainian war crimes wrong, says group’s head of operation in the country

A firefighter works at a residential house destroyed by a Russian military strike in Kharkiv region. Photo: Reuters


Joe Barnes

August 06 2022 

The head of Amnesty’s Ukrainian operation has publicly discredited its international headquarters’ report into alleged war crimes by Kyiv’s armed forces.

Oksana Pokalchuk accused the campaign group of publishing “inadmissible and incomplete” evidence, and said her colleagues in the war-torn country had been shut out of the investigation.

In its report, published on Thursday, Amnesty International claimed Ukraine had endangered civilians by setting up military bases in residential areas, including hospitals and schools, in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions.

Its publication prompted anger in Kyiv, including from President Volodymyr Zelensky, with the Ukrainian government accusing the human rights organisation of siding with Russia.

In a social media post, Ms Pokalchuk, head of Amnesty Ukraine, said: “The Ukrainian office was not involved in the preparation or writing of the text of the publication.

"Our team’s arguments about the inadmissibility and incompleteness of such material were not taken into account.”

While looking into Russian attacks between April and July, Amnesty claimed it found evidence of Ukrainian forces operating out of civilian buildings in at least 19 towns and villages.

The organisation said Ukraine had committed “a clear violation of international humanitarian law” by operating military bases out of at least five hospitals.

It also claimed 22 out of 29 schools visited in the Donbas and Mykolaiv regions had been turned into military bases.

Amnesty said subsequent Russian strikes on the locations had resulted in multiple deaths and injuries. The report was criticised by some military analysts.

Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, wrote on Twitter that the report “demonstrates a weak understanding of the laws of armed conflict”.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said: “The findings... were based on evidence gathered during extensive investigations which were subject to the same rigorous standards and due diligence processes as all of Amnesty International’s work.”

 (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd)

Amnesty International scandal: Ukraine office head resigns

05.08.2022 

Amnesty International Ukraine Head Oksana Pokalchuk has decided to leave her post due to scandal over Amnesty International’s statement about the Ukrainian Army’s actions in the war with Russia.

The relevant statement was made by Amnesty International Ukraine Head Oksana Pokalchuk on Facebook, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“It is painful to admit but I and the leadership of Amnesty International have split over values. Hence, I decided to leave the organization. I believe any work for the good of society should be done taking into account the local context and thinking through consequences. Most importantly, I am convinced that our surveys should be made thoroughly and with people in mind, whose lives often depend directly on the words and actions of international organizations,” Pokalchuk wrote.

In her words, the Ukrainian office tried to convey information about the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine to the leadership of Amnesty International.

“Even yesterday, I had a naïve hope that I would be able to fix everything. That we would hold even 200 meetings but explain, reach out and convey our opinion. And that text would be deleted, and another one would appear in its place. Today I have realized this will not happen,” Pokalchuk noted.

In her words, the press release issued by Amnesty International on August 4, 2022, should have considered two parties and taken into account the position of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. Amnesty International asked the ministry for a commentary but provided very little time to respond. Hence, the organization created material that sounded as support for Russian narratives. Seeking to protect civilians, that survey became an instrument of Russian propaganda instead.

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‘Into military targets’ How Russian propaganda utilized and distorted allegations by Amnesty International that Ukrainian troops endanger civilians

 August 6, 2022
Source: Meduza

On August 4, the human rights organization Amnesty International published a report titled “Ukrainian Fighting Tactics Endanger Civilians,” warning that “Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas.” The report has provoked a strong backlash in the West, including criticism by President Volodymyr Zelensky and Amnesty’s own local office in Ukraine. The report proved immediately useful to the state media in Russia, where propagandists have insisted since the start of the war that the Ukrainian military uses civilians as “human shields.” Meduza reviews the reactions to Amnesty International’s controversial findings.

What does Amnesty International’s report actually say?

“The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks,” Amnesty International concluded in its report. After spending several weeks investigating Russian strikes in the Kharkiv, Donbas, and Mykolaiv regions, Amnesty’s researchers found that Ukrainian forces have “put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February.”

Amnesty’s report states that “such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets.”

Researchers noted that Russia also attacked residential areas without any Ukrainian military presence. In some areas of Kharkiv, for example, the organization “did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.”

What has the United Nations said about fighting tactics and human rights in Ukraine?

On June 29, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report about the human rights situation in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as it stood between February 24 and May 15. Researchers found that both Russian and Ukrainian troops had occupied positions in residential areas and near civilian infrastructure without adequately protecting the civilians there.

For example, in the town of Stara Krasnianka, in the Luhansk region, Ukraine’s armed forces entered a care facility strategically located near an important road. The building was also home to older persons, people with disabilities, and support staff. Two days later, the soldiers exchange fire with “Russian affiliated armed groups.” On March 11, the invading forces attacked the care house with heavy weapons, apparently killing dozens of patients and staff. According to the UN report, Ukraine nevertheless failed to take measures required under international humanitarian law to protect the civilians present.

The UN report also describes the Russian military’s civilian endangerment, not just involving attacks on Ukrainian positions but also concerning the mistreatment of noncombatants in occupied areas. For example, also in March 2022, Russian troops in the Chernihiv region held 360 residents (including 74 children and five persons with disabilities) in the basement of a school, seeking “to render their base immune from military operations, while also subjecting them to inhuman and degrading treatment.” Ten older people died in these conditions.

How has the pro-Kremlin mass media used Amnesty International’s report?

Russia’s federal censor has blocked Amnesty International’s website since March 11, 2022, but the organization’s report on fighting tactics in Ukraine was major news in Russia on August and became a trending story on the Yandex News aggregator, which does not index the independent media. To examine how the report reverberated in the news media that isn’t technically blocked in Russia, Meduza looked at three groups: (1) the state media, (2) the formally independent and neutral media that still complies with the Kremlin’s wartime censorship and unspoken rules, and (3) the formally independent but pro-Kremlin media.

With little nuance, these media outlets reported on Amnesty International’s findings by focusing almost exclusively on the allegations that the Ukrainian military has endangered civilians and violated international humanitarian law. The coverage ignored Amnesty’s underlying conclusions that Russian and “Russian affiliated” troops are the ones firing on civilians, and that Ukrainian violations of humanitarian law do not in any way justify Russian strikes that kill and injure civilians.

What details from Amnesty’s report were missing from Russian media coverage?

• Reported by RIA Novosti, TASS, RBC, Kommersant, and Komsomolskaya Pravda: Ukraine has operated military bases in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, and opened fire from residential areas. Missing: “Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians.”
• Reported by RIA Novosti: Ukrainian forces have endangered civilians by using weapons systems in populated areas, including schools and hospitals. Missing: “as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February.”
• Reported by RBC: Establishing combat positions and firing from these areas makes them into military targets, leading to attacks that kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure. Missing: Russian forces are responsible for launching these attacks.
• Reported by RBC: In at least three towns, Ukrainian forces moved closer to schools after attacks against their previous positions. Missing: Russia’s military has attack numerous school buildings where Ukrainian troops had taken up positions. Ukrainian soldiers moving closer to schools have relocated to avoid attacks by Russia’s armed forces.
• Reported by RBC: On May 21, several nearby homes were damaged in an attack against a university building in Bakhmut that was being used as a military base. Missing: Russian soldiers carried out the attack, which killed seven people.
• Totally ignored: In some areas of Kharkiv, Amnesty did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.
• Totally ignored: “International humanitarian law does not specifically ban parties to a conflict from basing themselves in schools that are not in session. However, militaries have an obligation to avoid using schools that are near houses or apartment buildings full of civilians, putting these lives at risk, unless there is a compelling military need.”
• Also totally ignored: “Many of the Russian strikes that Amnesty International documented in recent months were carried out with inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally banned cluster munitions, or with other explosive weapons with wide area effects.”

Reactions from Ukrainian officials

Ukrainian officials have denounced Amnesty International’s report as “absurd,” “offensive,” and “disrespectful” (according to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk), and as an attempt to establish a “false equivalence between the villain and the victim” (said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba). Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak even suggested that the allegations of international humanitarian law are meant to “undermine” Western support for supplying weapons to Ukraine.

Deputy Defense Minister Anna Maliar argued that Ukrainian troops establish positions in residential areas to defend civilians against Russian invasion. “While we wait around in a field for the Russian enemy, the Russians would occupy all our homes,” she reasoned. Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov warned that the Ukrainian government “will not allow our army and our defenders to be vilified.” (On August 5, journalist Tanya Kozyreva cited anonymous sources claiming that Ukraine’s military has already revoked the accreditation of Amnesty International staffers.)

Some of the harshest criticism has come directly from President Volodymyr Zelensky, who faulted Amnesty’s “immoral selectivity,” claiming that the organization ignores Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine. “Everyone who grants amnesty to Russia and facilitates an informational context wherein some terrorist attacks are justified or rationalized cannot be unaware that this helps the terrorists,” Zelensky said on August 4.

Reactions from journalists and human rights activists in Ukraine

Numerous journalists and human rights activists in Ukraine have joined the government in criticizing Amnesty International’s report, accusing researchers of equating Ukraine’s self-defense with Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Executive Director Oleksandr Pavlichenko says Ukraine’s legitimate combat mission includes the defense of populated settlements, arguing that Russia bears responsibility for any attacks against civilians in these areas. Pavlichenko also accused Amnesty International of omitting data about the use of civilian facilities by occupying troops in Ukraine.

In a post on Facebook, Public Interest Journalism Lab cofounder and war correspondent Nataliya Gumenyuk noted that militaries have the right to establish positions in residential areas so long as they warn the local population. (Amnesty’s report also states that militaries “should warn civilians and, if necessary, help them evacuate,” but researchers say they didn’t find evidence of this in the cases they examined.)

Gumenyuk says her own observations in the field and communications with both soldiers and noncombatants indicate that Ukraine’s armed forces are doing their best not to endanger civilians. She also noted that Amnesty neglected to highlight Russia’s use of excessive force against targets in populated areas, for example, by firing missiles into residential districts because a handful of Ukrainian soldiers were present.

Echoing government officials, Razumkov Center Foreign Policy and International Security Programs Co-Director Oleksii Melnyk warned that Amnesty’s report is “very convenient for Russian narratives.”

Reactions from other experts

Boyd van Dijk, the author of the recent book “Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions,” condensed the criticisms of Amnesty’s report in a thread on Twitter. According to the University of Melbourne historian, the “most important critique” of the work is that “the Ukrainians are fighting a just war against illegal aggression and alien occupation,” and that it would be “unfair to call out their relatively marginal [international humanitarian law] violations compared to grave breaches by [the] Russian aggressor.”

Explaining that holding victim states strictly accountable for observing humanitarian law has been controversial since the laws were first adopted in 1949, van Dijk also pointed out that the Soviet Union supported an initiative by Jewish survivors of World War II that rejected “belligerent equality” when it comes to fighting tactics used by aggressors and defenders. He says Amnesty’s allegations against the Ukrainian military mischaracterize the laws in question:

The point being here is that it would be better both analytically as well as normatively to embrace the richness of [international humanitarian legal] history, rather than framing it as a strict codebook with severe limitations for those fighting against aggression and/or genocide, as the Amnesty report does.

Human rights lawyer Kirill Koroteev, who oversees the Agora human rights group’s international practice, stresses that not all violations of humanitarian law constitute war crimes. For example, using human shields is a war crime, but occupying an empty civilian building is not. The former offense is directly subject to international prosecution, while the latter is treated as a violation of human rights treaties or the national norms in a particular country.

What does Amnesty International have to say about all this?

According to the organization’s own rules, Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Department is responsible for documenting violations and crimes during armed conflicts.

Amnesty’s Ukrainian office was not involved in creating the August 4 report, but staff protested the document’s publication, believing it to be one-sided and incomplete. The office refused to translate it into Ukrainian or publish it on their website. On August 5, Ukrainian branch chief Oksana Pokalchuk resigned in protest, stating in a Facebook post that her team’s work had “crashed against a wall of bureaucracy and a deaf language barrier.” She also faulted the organization’s “failure to understand the local context” and its decision to “ignore the position of the human rights community in Ukraine.”

In a widely criticized tweet after the report’s release, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard accused “Ukrainian and Russian social media mobs and trolls” of waging “war propaganda, disinformation, [and] misinformation” against her organization’s investigation. “This won’t dent our impartiality and won’t change the facts,” she added.

‘Slap in the face’ of US media as Chinese netizens express full support for govt’s countermeasures against US and Pelosi

By Wang Qi

Published: Aug 05, 2022

CHINA / DIPLOMACY

Screens at multiple 7-Eleven stores on the island of Taiwan are found showing the words "war monger Pelosi get out of Taiwan" on August 3, 2022. Photo: from website

Chinese netizens have swarmed to social media to express firm and full support for and confidence in the central government's measures to tackle the US after Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday announced countermeasures against the US' provocation and sanctions against US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi due to her Taiwan island visit.

This is a slap in the face of some US media, which recently claimed that Chinese people are losing faith in the government amid the ongoing Taiwan Straits tension.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying on Friday afternoon announced sanctions on Pelosi and her immediate family in accordance with the law, for seriously undermining China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, trampling on the one-China principle, and threatening the peace and stability of the Taiwan Straits.

On the same day, China also announced countermeasures against the US, canceling or suspending bilateral cooperation in eight fields.

Though many netizens in the Chinese mainland expressed disappointment after Pelosi landed in Taipei on Tuesday, they came to understand and support the government's multiple countermeasures in the military, diplomatic and economic areas. The people have never lost confidence in the government, and China fully understands the importance of patience and calmness, observers said.

"Sanction Pelosi" soon became the top trending topic on Sina Weibo, with over 240 million reads and 36,000 comments within an hour after the announcement. Meanwhile, five other topics related to the fallout of Pelosi's visit were on the top 10 trending list, including the People's Liberation Army (PLA)'s missile launches during the drills.

"It was not honest to say I was not upset after Pelosi landed in Taiwan, but my heart revived after seeing our counterattack!" said a Weibo user.

"Now I understand that the great power game is a long-lasting one. I trust my country!" said another net user.

What comes will come, said a netizen, "'God of stocks of Capitol Hill' has come to her twilight."

Analysts said that netizens' full understanding and firm support of the central government has given the US media a "resounding slap in the face." Earlier on Friday, the Voice of America released a report with sarcastic tone, saying that Beijing was burned by its populist fire, as people were frustrated and angry that the government's responses were weaker than expected. The New York Times on Thursday also hyped netizen's anger about Pelosi's visit as the "perils of preaching nationalism."

"It is obvious that VOA faithfully performs the role of a propaganda tool managed by the US Agency for Global Media, and sets off a new round of a public opinion offensive against China, which is actually quite weak… while The New York Times report is just biased and unprofessional," said Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University.

"The Chinese government has exercised restraint based on reason and the value of peace," Shen said.

Wang Yu-ching, a Taiwan cross-Straits observer who lives in the mainland, told the Global Times that the US is trying to stir up internal tensions in the mainland by distorting exaggerated reports of "discontent."

Whether it is complaints, support or anger from netizens, there is one thing that is consistent with the central government: firmly defending China's territory and sovereignty and the reunification of the motherland, which has nothing to do with a backlash against the government and Party, as the US media said, experts said.

"During the Civil War, didn't people want a united and strong America?" Wang asked, "Chinese people today are fully aware that the central government will not sit idly by when facing Taiwan secessionists' and US politicians' provocation."

The PLA on Thursday commenced the second phase of its large-scale military exercises that completely locked down the island of Taiwan, and began to use live fire following the first phase of preparations. China's Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng summoned US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns overnight to protest against Pelosi's visit to Taiwan island.

After Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, Chinese netizens have become more mature in their understanding of complex national security issues, Shen said.

People have even more trust in the government and believe that China is playing a big game in the long run, he said.

Wang said the short-term mood swings of Chinese mainland netizens should be seen as a positive interaction between the people and the government in a democratic system.

Instead of piecing together material to attack China, the US media should reflect on the passive situation brought by Pelosi's visit to the island of Taiwan, especially when the mainland's military exercises send strong signals of deterrence and determination, Shen said.

Meet the Jews of color exploring what it means to be Black, Asian, Latino — and Jewish

New ADL fellowships fund films, programs and research on diversity, racism and intersectionality in Jewish communities


From left to right, ADL Collaborative for Change fellows Jared Chiang-Zeizel, Isaac de Castro, Deitra Reiser, Carmel Tanaka, Sara Yacobi-Harris. Courtesy of Kamollio Bennett (for Jared Chiang-Zeizel); Isaac de Castro; Deitra Reiser; @manoa1 (for Carmel Tanaka); Sara Yacobi-Harris.


By TaRessa Stovall

August 06, 2022

With the growing recognition of Jews of color in the broader Jewish community comes an increased understanding of the harm that racially diverse Jews all too often experience in mainstream Jewish spaces.

Now, the Anti-Defamation League is seeking to remedy that – and putting money behind it – via Collaborative for Change fellowships for Jews of color. The fellows’ mission is to create multimedia stories about their diverse groups.

Understanding antisemitism and racism

Tema Smith, who was appointed as ADL’s director of Jewish outreach and partnerships in January, helped to create and heads the fellowship program. “My role at ADL is about building relationships in the organized Jewish world and beyond,” she said. “This fellowship program is an opportunity for funding from a legacy organization to support the work of Jews of color. In addition, the fellows’ work will help us at ADL to increase our understanding of the intersections of antisemitism and racism that Jews of color face.”

Smith, a Black Jewish woman based in Toronto, recently received the 2022 JPro Young Professionals Award in recognition of her work on Jewish inclusion and diversity initiatives. With extensive experience in community engagement, training, research and advocacy, she has served as director of professional development at 18Doors (formerly InterfaithFamily), and worked as a synagogue professional, most recently as the director of community engagement at Holy Blossom Temple, Toronto’s oldest synagogue. She is also a contributing columnist at the Forward, and has been published in MYJewish Learning, The Globe and Mail and other publications.

Smith explained that the Collaborative for Change fellowships provide funding to build upon the fellows’ existing work to strengthen their efforts on topics of concerns to Jews generally, and Jews of color particularly.


She welcomes the opportunity to work with and learn from “this multi-talented group, all of whom are approaching this topic from a lens that is different than mine. I’m also looking forward to being part of this community that is producing knowledge together, and to having a new field of experts to turn to.”

So, who are the fellows?

Jared Chiang-Zeizel: Exploring the lives of Asian American Jewish clergy women

Jared Chiang-Zeizel Photo by Kamollio Bennett

For his fellowship project, multi-hyphenate creative Jared Chiang-Zeizel will make a documentary film exploring the lives, rituals and experiences of four Asian American Jewish clergy women. “I want to share how these women navigate lives that seem to be getting more complicated by the day,” said Chiang-Zeizel, “along with the history of being Asian American and the intersection with the Jewish community over the years.”

The clergy women represent the connections between the communities, such as Jews who fled Europe during World War II and went to China. “I am drawn to the uniqueness of these women and their stories, and curious to talk to them about gender,” Chiang-Zeizel said, because of public perception that most rabbis are male.


Smith relates to Chiang-Zeizel’s vision. “So many Jews of color have grown up not seeing other Jews that look like them or who share their background,” she said. “His documentary will profile leaders to widen the lens of what a Jew — and a Jewish clergy member – looks like.”

Chiang-Zeizel grew up near Boston with a Jewish father and a multi-ethnic Asian American mother. “I was raised in a religious home,” he said. “I went to Hebrew school, had a bar mitzvah. My parents instilled pride in Jewish heritage. And it was important to my mom that we stayed connected to our Chinese heritage. Being mixed, sometimes you drift away from one half or the other — it was important to see them under one roof where we learned about and embraced both cultures.”

Now a Los Angeles resident, Chiang-Zeizel is a popular speaker on Asian and Jewish representation, mixed identity and lucid dreaming as a way to remember and reconnect with dreams. His writing and editing credits include work for Sony Pictures, Disney, Lucas Films, Netflix, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, NPR, NBC and others. He worked on “Lunar: The Jewish-Asian Film Project,” which featured about two dozen Asian American Jews, and received the David Chase Screenwriting Fellowship. He writes in several genres and his bestselling book, “A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming,” is available around the world in 11 languages.

His documentary will show that neither community is monolithic. “It’s rare that we hear about Asian rabbis and their struggles,” he said. “Both communities have a full multitude of individuals who cross over into both environments.”

Chiang-Zeizel emphasizes the power of role models. “We look to our religious leaders for guidance and understanding. They help people walk through their existence, understand the big questions, but also deal with things like what it feels like to walk into a space where you should belong, but you might feel like you don’t belong.”

Isaac de Castro: Exploring Jewish Latino voices in the Sephardi community

Isaac de Castro Courtesy of Isaac de Castro

Isaac de Castro, a Sephardic Jew, grew up in Panama and came to the U.S. for college. He is a Zionist, a journalist, the editor of Jewcy.com and an activist whose fight against antisemitism is woven throughout his work.

For his fellowship, de Castro is collaborating with the American Sephardi Foundation (ASF) Institute of Jewish Experience to interview people with Latino and Sephardic Jewish identities, in particular immigrants from Latin America, for an online and in-person exhibit of oral histories, images and testimonies about these often overlooked communities.

“I’m looking to explore the experience of coming into the United States speaking English as a second language, of being Latino immigrants coming into a majority Ashkenazi community – people who came into the U.S. from Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela for political asylum and related reasons,” he said.

The fellowship opportunity with ADL (which recently honored de Castro at its Concert Against Hate), appealed to his inclusive vision. “The Sephardi experience is wrapped up in so many diasporas — Spain, the Middle East, Latin America and the U.S,” he said. “There are varied experiences that deserve to be studied, talked about, written about and put on this platform.”

He says his project will strengthen connections. “I’m presenting new voices that not many Jewish communities have heard with that kind of specificity. I think they will benefit from learning more about the people whose stories we’ll share.”

Deitra Reiser: ‘Building Racial Stamina’ in Jewish communities

Deitra Reiser Courtesy of Deitra Reiser

As a Black Jew, Deitra Reiser has experienced how systems of oppression and history connect for both groups. While consulting in Jewish spaces on diversity, equity and inclusion, she founded Transform for Equity in 2021 – “an antiracist repair group” to raise awareness and create personal and professional transformation toward institutional and systemic antiracism.

Reiser then used her background as a school psychologist and educator to develop the “Building Racial Stamina” curriculum, which she used in her synagogue, and then with Jewish organizations across the nation.

She noted that “racism and antisemitism fit together” with as many as 8% of Jews describing themselves as having nonwhite heritage according to a Pew Research Center study from 2021. “I find that the deep learning and facilitated discussions in Building Racial Stamina provide people an antiracist lens to participate more fully in equity assessments, institutional policy change and a solid base for executives and leaders for coaching.”

Reiser and her partner, who live outside of Washington, D.C., are committed to raising their children to feel positive about both their Black and Jewish identities. Learning that “the racism in our Jewish community was a factor out of my control, and hearing the experiences of Jews of color, especially young folks, made me want to be more active in the larger community to ensure that my children would have spaces where they felt a sense of belonging,” she said.

Reiser saw the fellowship’s potential to examine solutions to the oppression of Jews, Blacks and other groups. “We need to dig deeper to understand how to talk together. Because if we are really going to make our Jewish spaces and our world more equitable, that is where our power lies — in connecting,” she said.

Her project will expand the Building Racial Stamina curriculum into three sessions for Jewish and non-Jewish groups to reflect on and learn about the connection between racism and antisemitism. “There is resistance in both spaces, but we are making gains,” she said. “I think everyone working in this space is optimistic, or we wouldn’t be able to keep doing this work in the Jewish spaces, and in the larger society.”

Smith said Reiser’s experience makes her “the perfect person to engage in these conversations, which have sometimes become fraught as we reflect on the Jewish experience of oppression more broadly. Deitra’s focus on developing a space for reflection and building the emotional tools to stay in the conversation about how race and racism can show up in Jewish spaces is so important.”

Reiser said “that our Jewish values call us to do this work. Our Jewish community will not thrive if we’re not creating spaces of belonging. For us to really make gains towards an equitable society, we must work together to eliminate both antisemitism and racism. We cannot let this divide us.”

Carmel Tanaka: Telling Jewish Japanese stories across borders

Carmel Tanaka Photo by @manoa1

Carmel Tanaka is a founding member of the Jewpanese community — people with Jewish and Japanese heritage. Her Ashkenazi Israeli mother is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Her third-generation Japanese Canadian father’s family was interned during World War II. “I grew up with this very public awareness of ‘never again,’ and this tug of wanting to make sure that these injustices don’t continue to happen,” she said.

For her fellowship project, Tanaka, a queer Jewish Japanese woman based in Vancouver, British Columbia, will conduct 20 oral history video interviews with members of the Jewish Japanese community in the U.S., Canada, Japan and Israel. She will focus on their lived experiences and intergenerational trauma related to the Holocaust, Japanese Canadian internment and Imperial Japan, and will make the interviews available online.

“Carmel’s project highlights overlapping identities and histories of oppression, and the experiences of mixed people in navigating sometimes contradictory cultural norms,” Smith said. “I’m really excited about the global reach of her project, which will shed light on how context can shape personal narratives in rich and nuanced ways.”

Tanaka is a community engagement leader and a sought-after speaker and consultant. She has founded several leadership initiatives including JQT Vancouver, Genocide Prevention BC and Cross Cultural Walking Tours.

Her work fosters a sense of belonging. “Beyond our siblings, we often navigated both the Jewish and Japanese communities alone. We want people with other intersectional identities — Jewish and Chinese, Jewish and Black, and others — to feel inspired to collect stories from their own communities.”

“I didn’t coin the term Jewpanese,” she said, “but it made me think about the intersectionality of my identity.” She connected with other Jewish Japanese people around foods like green matcha cheesecake or miso maple trout for Jewish holidays. In May 2020, they began monthly Zoom calls that sparked close friendships.

“As the pandemic increased both anti-Asian racism and antisemitism, the online gatherings became a safe space for participants to share what they face in both communities and ask questions that we wouldn’t dare ask in our respective separate communities,” she said.

Tanaka has already completed the East Coast portion of her project and is now working elsewhere to show the increased mixing of families and cultures, and the challenges for those with blended identities. “It hasn’t always been a smooth ride for many of us,” she said. “We sometimes have to jump through hoops and obstacles to feel we belong, and some of us are only now reconnecting with language and culture.” Her interviews and social gatherings have connected Jewpanese people, couples and families regionally. “This intergenerational piece is important – representation matters.”

She says this project can be “relatable to a lot of people who are on the periphery of the Jewish community. Getting stories and personal accounts is the best way to bring change.” Follow the journey on Instagram: @JewpaneseProject.

Sara Yacobi-Harris: Toward a more holistic definition of Jewishness

Sara Yacobi-Harris Courtesy of Sara Yacobi-Harris

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in neighboring Minnesota, Sara Yacobi-Harris formed No Silence on Race in Ontario in June 2020. She began with an open letter inspired by the flurry of Floyd-related community dialogues and panels with Black Jews in Canada, describing the discrimination they’d faced in Jewish spaces. Her letter asked Jewish organizations what it meant to shift the culture, and offered a nine-pillar template to help them increase racial diversity and inclusion.

In response, the Ontario Jewish Archives asked Yacobi-Harris and her team to create a portrait series titled “Periphery,” featuring Jews of color. “This was an opportunity for us to shift our focus to creating our stories in a Jewish canon where our voices and images were included,” she said.

Then Yacobi-Harris, alongside No Silence on Race and the Ontario Jewish archives, directed and produced a short documentary film, also titled “Periphery,” broadening stories of the multi-ethnic Jewish experience to include sexual orientation, geography and Jewish observance among Jews of color in Toronto. “That gave us an opportunity to expand the narrative of who is a Jew in our community, reimagining Jewish life for people like us,” she said.

“Periphery” opened doors and raised awareness. “We were having conversations with people we hadn’t met or been in community with before — those who hold prominent roles of leadership,” Yacobi-Harris said. “We were able to put our agenda forward, inquire how it aligned with theirs, and ask how we could put our agendas together.”

Smith, who was included in Yacobi-Harris’ film and photo exhibits, said she was thrilled when external reviewers selected the project for funding. “The curriculum she is developing will allow countless communities, from teens to adults, to explore issues of Jewish identity, culture and race through the personal narratives of the subjects of the film. Sara’s work will give audiences a glimpse into the ways in which Jews of color navigate their multiple identities, family dynamics, and community contexts,” Smith added.

Yacobi-Harris, an artist of Jamaican and Georgian ancestry, as well as a filmmaker, media professional and community organizer, has worked on several television and digital productions at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She has led equity, inclusion and anti-racism strategy and policy implementation, along with community outreach, talent development and festival partnerships at the CBC.

In 2017, she produced and directed the documentary film, “Who is a Jew?” exploring the roots of cultural and ethnic identity and the experience of Black Jews and Jews of color in Toronto. She has worked with the Ontario Jewish Archives, Toronto Jewish Film Foundation and Hillel Ontario, and spoken at Jewish conferences, seminars, and events including Canada’s National Summit on Antisemitism.

She’ll use the fellowship to expand “Periphery” with two sets of curricula, as Reiser is doing: one for Jewish audiences, and one for non-Jewish audiences, with versions for grades eight to 12 and for adults. “This educational supplement is a screening guide to help facilitate conversations that foster greater awareness and understanding of who Jewish people are, and the diversity and intersectionality in Jewishness,” she said.

“The supplement, which will include relevant Torah elements, is digitized and used in classrooms in and outside of Jewish community spaces, multifaith spaces, and university spaces throughout Canada to combat stereotypes and prompt conversations about who Jewish people are locally and globally.”

Yacobi-Harris is buoyed by responses to the “Periphery” film. “People have reached out to tell us how it changed their perception. It’s shifting the way people think about being Jewish. That’s what drives me. That’s the goal.”

Check out and download the curriculum here.
TaRessa Stovall is an Atlanta-based writer specializing in intersectional identities. Her most recent book is a memoir, “SWIRL GIRL: Coming of Race in the USA.” Follow her on Twitter @taressatalks or email editorial@forward.com.