NORTH CAROLINA GETS TOUGHER ON BDS - BENJAMIN GLATT JERUSALEM POST

Sloan Rachmuth. (photo credit:FACEBOOK)

NORTH CAROLINA GETS TOUGHER ON BDS

• BYBENJAMIN GLATT
   
   AUGUST 24, 2017 JERUSALEM POST

Evangelical Christian group brings expert Sloan Rachmuth on board. 

On the heels of North Carolina’s anti-BDS bill, the state will be getting even tougher against the anti-Israel and antisemitic movement, with an evangelical group’s introduction of a new state director.

Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, an organization dedicated to creating dialogue between Christians and Jews to educate them about the dangers of antisemitism and the BDS movement in the US, announced recently that Sloan Rachmuth would be in charge of its North Carolina operations.

“Unfortunately, I have plenty of experience exposing the nature of the BDS movement as well as activists and financiers within the movement,” Rachmuth told The Jerusalem Post. “I have exposed anti-Israel programming within Jewish institutions, such as Conservative synagogues and major Hillel organizations. I have also exposed far-right antisemitism, such as displaying Nazi flags on our college campuses.”

Rachmuth’s name made it to the headlines in 2015 and 2016 when she and her husband, Guy, took on the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement. While raising her family in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, she faced a turning point after fighting a legal battle against a private school that hired teachers who promoted hate speech against Israel and racist ideologies to teach her children.

These experiences led her to the Proclaiming Justice to the Nations organization, and in turn she took an active role fighting antisemitism and BDS and being more vocal on Israel security issues, with the goal of fostering relationships between the State of Israel and the American people.

“[Proclaiming Justice to the Nations President Laurie Cardoza-Moore] and her team helped educate me about the existence of the BDS movement in schools,” she said. “Later, the organization stood by my side as I defended my family against attacks from members of the BDS movement when my case proceeded through the judicial process.

“After two years of my anti-BDS activism here in North Carolina, I was approached by the organization about putting together a team of like-minded activists from multiple faiths to educate my community about the antisemitic nature of BDS.”

In a letter to the followers of organization, Cardoza-Moore said Rachmuth has learned a lot from her experiences in protesting the anti-Jewish movement.

“Sloan is an expert in exposing the true nature of the BDS movement and anti-Israel bias in our schools and universities,” she said. “Journalists have utilized her investigative research to teach people how to recognize the BDS movement and ways to stop its growth.”

Rachmuth, who began her position with PJTN in June, founded and is the lead instructor of the North Carolina fitness center reCharge Pilates & Barre Durham. This won’t prevent her from dedicating as much time necessary to help make her state free from antisemitism and BDS, she said.

“In my new role, I plan to work as many hours necessary to get the job done,” she said. “Some weeks it may be 60 hours, others as little as 20 hours per week. As we get more challenges from anti-Israel activists, it will likely require more attention from me, and it is attention that I am willing to give.”

When exposing the BDS movement to the media, Rachmuth said she relies on financial records, the spoken word, recordings and other hard evidence that show the high-level coordination of many of these groups.

As chapter president, she said she will help educate business leaders, educators, legislators and university administrators about the true nature of anti-Israel and BDS activists, who are extremely active in this state.

“In North Carolina, we have some of the most well-financed and highly coordinated anti-Israel groups in the country,” she said. “Sadly they are far-left groups, as well as far-right groups, that are now highlighted in the mainstream media.”

In 2016, a Nazi flag was spotted in a dorm window at the University of North Carolina, and in Durham, activists persuaded the city council to end a contract with the G4S security company, which works in prisons and checkpoints in Israel. Also, Palestinian solidarity movements have become stronger over the years in North Carolina’s post-secondary educational institutions.

The recent anti-BDS bill in the state, however, has shown that the counter-BDS protests are making a difference.

“I did not have a hand in the BDS bill, which passed recently in North Carolina. However, with PJTN, we will pass an anti-antisemitism piece of legislation that will help protect college students in the state.”sign up to our newsletter

Israel's History - a Picture a Day - Why Was a Nazi Flag Flying from a Jerusalem Hotel in the 1930s?

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)

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Why Was a Nazi Flag Flying from a Jerusalem Hotel in the 1930s? Posted: 30 Aug 2015  We recently published pictures from the British Library's Endangered Archives Program, including this incredible picture of Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City which we have dated to the mid-1890s. Only in 1898 was the wall near Jaffa Gate breached so that carriages could drive into the city. Jaffa Gate and A(braham) Fast's restaurant.  (Debbas Collection, British Library) We wanted to know more about the store on the left with the sign "A Fast. Restauranteur."  Was this a tourist establishment of Abraham Fast, who in 1907 took over a large hotel several hundred meters to the west of the building pictured above and renamed it "Hotel Fast?" German troops marching in Jerusalem on Good Friday,  April 6, 1917. The building on the left is the Fast Hotel. (Imperial War Museum, UK) It was a leading hotel with 100 rooms, built around a court yard with Ionic, Corinthian and Doric columns. Hotel Fast and its kosher restaurant was a well-known establishment in Jerusalem for decades, and was probably considered by many to be a Jewish-owned establishment because of its Jewish clientele. Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Fasts were German Templers. The German consulate in the Fast Hotel, 1933.  (Wikimedia, Tamar Hayardeni) They lived in Jerusalem's German Colony and were exiled by the British after World War I and during World War II because of their support for Germany. We recently uncovered pictures of German troops marching in Jerusalem streets on Good Friday 1917. Readers were able to identify the building on the left as the Fast Hotel. Our biggest surprise was finding this picture of the German consulate in the Hotel Fast with the German Swastika flag flying from the building. During World War II, the hotel was taken over by the British army command and turned into the Australian army club. The Hotel Fast housed Australian soldiers in World War II.  Here they are greeting the Australian  Prime Minister Robert Menzies and the commander of the Australian troops in Australia,  Lt. Gen. Thomas Blamey in February 1941. The Matson Photo Service, shown on the ground  floor, was run by Eric Matson, originally from the American Colony Photographic Department.   Matson left Palestine in 1946 for the United States.  His collection of photos were  bequeathed to the Library of Congress where many of the pictures in this  website were found.  (Library of Congress)  The Hotel Fast building was abandoned in 1967 and torn down in 1976 to make way for the Dan Pearl Hotel.