More than 1.5 million Israeli flags to fly in memory of Oct. 7 victims
(JNS) — The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has organized an effort to fly more than 1.5 million Israeli flags in memory of the two-year anniversary of the Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, it said on Monday.
The “Flags of Fellowship” campaign involves more than 1 million congregants, churches, colleges and universities, and synagogues each flying 1,200 Israeli flags to represent those killed in the attack.
The campaign kicked off with a ceremony at Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Gaza Envelope, where nearly a quarter of the kibbutz’s residents were either kidnapped or killed that Black Shabbat.
The international campaign launched with a major gathering on Oct. 5 at the World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., with their congregation of 10,000 pro-Israel activists.
“Every one of these 1.5 million flags carries a simple and sacred truth: Am Yisrael is not alone,” said Yael Eckstein, president and CEO of IFCJ. “Across America, from churches to synagogues to universities, people of faith are standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel.”
“Each flag honors the lives stolen on Oct. 7, but it also proclaims that love, faith and fellowship are stronger than hate,” she continued. “Together, we are turning remembrance into action and grief into light.”
Manchester concert venue urged to nix gig by ‘antisemitic’ UK rock duo
(JNS) — A Jewish organization has called on a Manchester concert venue to cancel an upcoming performance by an English punk rock duo for engaging in rhetoric that the organization says crossed the line into antisemitism and incitement, British media reported on Wednesday.
The letter from the Jewish Representative Council to Manchester Academy was backed by 10 parliamentarians, and states that the council is “deeply concerned” about the Bob Vylan performance scheduled for November 5, SKY News reported.
An infamous performance by the group in June at the largest music festival in the United Kingdom which was livestreamed by the BBC was found to have breached the public-service broadcaster’s editorial standards after the punk duo led the crowd of thousands in chants of “death to the IDF.”
The U.S. State Department subsequently revoked the band members’ visas.
The Jewish group said that there was a vital distinction between criticism of the Israeli government and speech that veers into antisemitism, adding that “an artist who has consistently been condemned as hateful should not be given such a platform,” SKY News reported.
The letter comes a week after two people were killed in a Yom Kippur attack on a Manchester synagogue.
László Krasznahorkai, grim Hungarian author with hidden Jewish roots, wins literature Nobel
(JTA) — This year’s Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to a Hungarian writer whose work offers bleak visions of existence, and whose father hid his Jewish ancestry from him for much of his childhood.
László Krasznahorkai, the 71-year-old novelist and screenwriter, achieved international acclaim for formally daring books like “Satantango” and “The Melancholy of Resistance,” as well as a series of collaborations with the filmmaker Bela Tarr. He is often compared to master Russian novelists like Dostoyevsky and Gogol.
The Swedish Nobel jury called him “a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and is characterized by absurdism and grotesque excess.” Another prominent champion of Krasznahorkai’s: the Jewish culture critic Susan Sontag, who praised the infamous 7.5-hour film adaptation of “Satantango” and deemed him a “master of the apocalypse.”
Krasznahorkai was born in 1954 in the small town of Gyula, near the Romanian border. As a child, he has said in interviews, he had no idea his father hailed from a Hungarian Jewish family. In 1931, as antisemitism was on the rise in Hungary but before the passage of formal anti-Jewish laws in the country, the author’s grandfather had changed their family name from Korin to the more native Hungarian-sounding Krasznahorkai.
Hundreds of Kenyans march for Israel in Nairobi
(JNS) — Hundreds of Christians marched through the streets of the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on Tuesday in a faith-based show of support for Israel.
The event, which commemorated the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught on southern Israel, offered a stark contrast with the throng of anti-Israel protests held the same day throughout Europe as well as in Australia, and follows an intensive Israeli outreach to the African continent.
The nearly two-mile peaceful “March for Israel,” which was convened by the King Jesus Celebration Church Worldwide, the Africa-Israel initiative, the Israel Allies Foundation and the Faith Fathers of Kenya, was addressed by local evangelical Christian leaders who underscored the biblical foundation for their support.
“I call on his excellency, the president, to protect the relationship between Kenya and Israel as it is a covenantal, long-standing relationship,” said Bishop Dennis Nthumbi, Africa Director of the Israel Allies Foundation, who criticized the government for voting against Israel at the United Nations. “The ambassadors at the U.N. are misrepresenting the Kenyan voters by voting against Israel, and no ambassador can sever Kenya’s relationship with Israel.”
The crowd, which waved a mix of Kenyan and Israeli flags, cheered “Amen” when a speaker noted, “Without Israel, there is no messiah,” and “without Israel, we cannot find our heritage.”
