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Friday, May 09, 2025
Jewish American History Month at the court
It was a packed house yesterday at the Federal Courthouse as Beth Bloom led the way for a wonderful event -- it started with a video put together by Bobby Gilbert (featuring Judges Stanley Marcus and Joan Lenard) and then moved into an interesting discussing between Judge Roy Altman and Dan Senor. Good stuff.
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15 comments:
interesting discussion*
Have there been other instances in which a foreign country's flag gets raised on equal footing to the U.S. flag in one of our United States federal courtrooms as part of a cultural or religious heritage event? There probably have been other such instances, but it just strikes me as odd.
If, for example, a group of Russian, or Chinese, or Palestinian heritage lawyers wished to celebrate their heritage, would the Court be open to raising the Russian, Chinese, or Palestinian flags in the same way?
Don't confuse this for an attack. It is a genuine, curiosity based, question.
To 3:22
Funny you should ask. There were at least two violations of the US Flag Code yesterday. The US Flag should have been to the left of the Israeli flag and the Israeli flag should have been lower than the US Flag.
Not higher like it is?
While the Flag Code is completely phrased permissively, as it otherwise would be flagrantly unconstitutional, these details do matter to a keen observer. Someone should have caught this. Something tells me they didn't mind, though.
Did the interesting discussion touch on the recent mass escalation in Israeli violence against Palestinians or the illegal and entirely speech-based arrest and detention of pro-Palestinian students and others in the United States?
To 6:24 pm: you do realize, do you not, that being Jewish American does not automatically or even usually equate to being politially pro/con-Israel, nor does it have anything to do with a flagrantly anti-Semitic criminal president (of unknown, if any, religious beliefs) directing attacks on and detention of pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas persons under the guise of preventing anti-Semitism. Why are you injecting your slanted politics into a celebration of heritage?
Fair. But it's a pretty thin line. And often obfuscated. Sometimes I wonder if on purpose?
Well, that seems to have been solidly and consistently the view presented on behalf of Jews, like me, by official events held by this district or attended by its representatives.
Flying the Israeli flag in the courthouse and supporting g Jewish American Heritage are two very different things. Many Jews do not support the government of Israel or what it is doing in their name. A heritage event should be just that. Flying the flag of a country confuses the purpose of a heritage event
Instead of Jewish American History Month, just insert Legal between history and month and you have a more focused topic. There are too many Jewish legal luminaries to list which is why it is a good topic. And to those people who think we should balance the scales and include Russian, Chinese and Muslim contiributions, have at it. I say let's have a Sharia Law Day and watch videos of gay men being stoned to death in a public square or a tour of Chines concentration camps where Uyghurs are kept imprisoned and mistreated. And Russia's contribution can be a public reading of excerpts from The Gulag Archipelago.
Many Jewish people, though by no means all, have been awfully quiet about Trump using claims of antisemitism to justify illegal arrests and various fascism test runs. The ADL has supported Trump on this. Jewish groups like Betar and Canary Mission are supplying the names of the Muslim students whose speech is, to them, worthy of incarceration by the State.
Or, perhaps just some of the more recent executive orders or detentions or the attacks on Palestinians or people who do not believe they should be killed because of where they live. It is atrocious what the Jewish community is permitting to go on in its name. And, we will end up paying for it down the line.
Hear hear!
I’m all for the freedom and space to observe your religion, wear your kippa to court even, but beware you have now invited others to show up wearing a kaffieh. Israel and Palestine are foreign countries and neither of their respective flags belong in the religious/cultural heritage context inside a federal court.
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