My father spent his teen years in a small pocket of Queens, New York called Middle Village. I cannot say for certain that Middle Village had a Jewish majority in the 1930s, but when I lived there in the 1950s, it sure felt that we did since we had three synagogues in our small part of town below Metropolitan Avenue, the area between “the Avenue,” as Middle Villagers still call it today, and south to Cooper Avenue and the railroad tracks. Adjoining Middle Village on the south are Glendale and Ridgewood.
Scholars of the lead-up to World War II often make note of the fact that there were many German citizens and immigrants in the US who publicly supported Germany under Adolf Hitler. Even bucolic Ridgewood had one called the Efdende Organization – Efdende being the German acronym for “Friends of the New Germany,” and that New Germany being the Third Reich under Hitler. The organization was succeeded by the German American Bund.
On April 8, 1934, a group of more than 5,000 American Nazis and sympathizers met at the Ridgewood Grove Arena to call for a “boycott against the boycotters,” meaning a boycott of Jewish merchants who stood against Hitler. Like pro-Nazi individuals (think Charles Lindbergh), groups like the Friends of the New Germany sought a more “neutral” American stance on the New Germany.
I once asked my father why the Jews in Middle Village didn’t take on the Bund when they marched in Ridgewood. His reply was: “We were afraid, there were thousands of them.” And so, the conversation ended.
Today, New Jersey’s Jewish population no longer hears from the Bund or Ku Klux Klan (yes, the Klan existed in New Jersey.) Today, we face off against the Palestinian-American population that supports a Palestine “from the river to the sea.”
The cities of Paterson and Clifton, both in Passaic County, have large Jewish populations. They also have the largest populations of Palestinian Arab-Americans in New Jersey, and perhaps the United States. The southern half of Paterson is nicknamed “Little Ramallah.”
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Palestinian American population built a community center in Clifton to serve their needs, just as the Jews did by opening YMHAs and Jewish Community Centers throughout New Jersey and other metropolitan areas. How else can you hope to be part of the melting pot that was America?
Yet, today, at least one such community center in New Jersey is not designed to help members fit in to American society. It was built to perpetuate and teach hate of the Jews and by implication, the State of Israel.
OPENED IN 2014, Clifton’s Palestinian American Community Center, or PACC, was built, per its website, with a mission for members “to sustain and strengthen ties to their Palestinian heritage.” On its home page, members subscribe to such noble attributes as “integrity, empowerment, service, people cooperation, and respect. These core values represent what we believe in, what we stand for, and how we approach everything we do.”
The lies being told
Yet, with such a powerful statement prominently displayed, I find it disturbing that the PACC released a video regarding the Israel-Hamas war. Straight and to the point, the video is called Lies currently been told about Palestine.
The video’s moderator states that there are three lies being circulated regarding the war:
“Number one: 40 babies were beheaded. This is completely false. No evidence has been provided for this.”
“Number two: people were raped. Also, false. There is no evidence for this whatsoever.”
“Number three: 250 people were killed at a concert. False. The only videos we have seen are people running away from the concert. There isn’t a single video or photo suggesting that 250 people were killed at a concert or that a mass shooting took place.”
“What we do have, however, are interviews of Israelis claiming that the Palestinian resistance fighters were actually kind to them, merciful to them.”
And while the moderator is speaking, there is a video playing in the background with a woman speaking. Although her voice is not audible, the subtitles printed on the screen say, “Look around, one says in English, we will not hurt you. Don’t worry, I’m a Muslim.”
The moderator asks, “So why are they lying, it is called, atrocity propaganda. They lie about atrocities!”
Perhaps not surprisingly, the video has since been taken down with the following message in its place: “Immediately notify the sender by telephone or email and delete the original email and all copies of it from your computer system.”
Not to be phased by their misstep in posting the video, PACC now has a Solidarity and Advocacy Social Media Tool Kit on its website. Among the tools, a list of media sites that shill for the Palestinian cause and the United Nations; news that has never been too accurate when it comes to reporting from Gaza; 10 captions for use in social media posts; material for Facebook posts, and from the Council on American–Islamic Relations, a Hamas supporter; and letter templates. And what anti-Israel booklet would be complete without a page urging readers to “join the BDS Movement”?
Palestinian-American politicians get into the act, too, but in the wrong forum. Using their positions on the Clifton Board of Education, Feras Awwad and Fahim Abedrabbo violated state law by making pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel statements at a Board of Education meeting.
Muttering the usual inanities about “ethnic cleansing,” that “Israel is being funded [with] $40 billion of US taxpayer money to oppress people, the Palestinian people,” and that in Gaza, Israel is “building apartheid-style walls, trapping them [the Palestinian Arab people in Gaza], controlling every movement... basically keeping them locked up in a prison... and they’re not allowed to move freely within the land.”
At the prodding of the board attorney, both men stated that the sentiments were their own and not that of the Clifton Board of Education.
Middle Village had its Nazi-supporting neighbors. The Jews of Clifton have those who support Hamas.
If the PACC and Awwad and Abedrabbo were truly interested in working for the betterment of Palestinians in the Middle East, they should be joining with Jews around the world who are protesting the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 and support Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas whose rule has brought only despair to Gaza.
The writer is president of the Religious Zionists of America (RZA). He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995, and is the author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror. Note: The RZA is not affiliated with any American or Israeli political party.