Hendel: Netanyahu has track record of sexism
American-Israeli basketball influencer making an impact on courts and screens all over the world
prime minister Benjamin netanyahu has repeatedly crossed redlines and has shown disrespect to women, new hope Knesset candidate yoaz hendel said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post on monday.
hendel, who was a spokesman for netanyahu, spoke after netanyahu put down new hope’s no. 2, Knesset coronavirus committee head yifat shasha-Biton, in a Kan reshet Bet interview. when asked to explain why nearly 6,000 israelis have died from the virus, netanyahu said: “ask the Shashot and the pakot and the paka.”
the urban dictionary says that while PakaPaka usually means “blah blah blah,” in israel it is used as a derogatory term, meaning “you are full of s***.”
hendel, speaking to the
Post at the Knesset, noted that in another recent interview, netanyahu acted as if he was unaware of the #metoo movement.
hendel quit in 2012 as netanyahu’s director of communications and public diplomacy after the prime minister told his aide he had lost confidence in him. the rift was caused
Arizona Chapter chairwoman of the RJC, told the Post that she “absolutely” believes that Trump should run in 2024.
“He is and will be the head of the Republican Party, even though the mainstream media would like everyone to believe otherwise,” she said. “Trump’s popularity remains quite high and I believe it will continue to soar, as the American people continue to witness the catastrophic policies of the Biden-Harris administration, such as the Keystone Pipeline job-killer, and reentering the disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal.”
Stephen Fiske is chairman of the US-Israel PAC. Like Karlovsky, he believes that Trump will be the nominee in 2024 – but he isn’t sure if the former president will actually decide to run.
“Trump’s announcement, if just simply posturing or real, is welcome news to American Jews, who prioritize Israel,” said Fiske. “Even if he decides to be the face of the Republican Party and just support primary and general election candidates, that too will be viewed as a positive by the growing Republican Jewish base.
“There’s no doubt a growing percentage of the Jewish community would prefer that Trump runs in 2024,” Fiske added. “He has proven beyond a doubt his friendship and support to the American Jewish community here in the US and Israel.”
Fiske, a South Florida realtor, noted that Trump received over 40% of the Sunshine State’s Jewish vote.
“More American Jews and friends of American Jews will clearly see this and unequivocally gravitate towards Trump or a surrogate if he chooses one to replace him,” he continued. “For all of Trump’s idiosyncrasies, he has been historic in his support of the State of Israel, and that has not gone unnoticed.”
Fiske noted that Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and facilitated normalization between Israel and four Arab-majority Muslim nations. “Jewish Americans will vote for Trump, as actions speak louder than anything else,” he said. •
Mike Kaufman may be the most popular Israeli basketball player you never heard of. The American-born 27-year-old Kaufman played professional basketball for two years in Israel, is a well-known basketball teacher, coach, sports journalist/videographer and social media influencer. He has accompanied NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo to Greece, shot around with Dwyane Wade, taught literally millions of aspiring young players to make complex shots, and recently did a feature video story on Israel's two recent NBA draftees – Deni Avdija and Yam Madar.
These days, Kaufman consistently outscores all Israeli basketball players on social media combined by a long shot. The very gregarious Kaufman described himself this week to The Jerusalem Post as a “late basketball bloomer.” He was born into a Jewish family in New York, moved to Florida at age seven, and eventually made his high school basketball team as a junior. He was high school teammates and friends with Yogev Berdugo, who currently serves as head skill development coach for all of Israel's national basketball teams.
Kaufman was impressive enough to catch the attention of recruiters from a number of colleges in the United States.
“I fell in love with Cambridge and Boston,” said Kaufman, who went on to play at Division III Lesley College, where he studied business management and psychology and served as captain for two years. Kaufman set two school records – most three-pointers made in a single game and best single season three-point percentage at 44.5%. He was also a semifinalist in the 2014 ESPN college dunk contest.
During his college years, Kaufman again crossed paths with Berdugo, who is also owner and director of America- and Israel-based Camp Step It Up Basketball Sleepaway Camps. Kaufman taught basketball at a camp where Israel's recent Boston Celtics draft pick, Madar, was a 12-year-old camper at the time.
In considering his next basketball move, Kaufman consulted with Laine Selwyn, an old mentor and coach from his early days at what Kaufman refers to as “the Marv Kessler Basketball Camp.”
Kessler was a well-known coach and instructor throughout the basketball world; he was best known as an instructor from the mid-1960s to the 1990s at the prominent Five-Star Basketball Camp in Honesdale, PA.
“Laine knew me from when I was a little kid!” reported Kaufman.
She went on to be a basketball star at University of Pittsburgh, as well as in the WNBA, with several European teams and with Maccabi Ashdod. She played in Israel for 10 years and encouraged Kaufman to consider joining her there.
“[Laine] said ‘should think about aliyah and playing basketball in Israel.' So, after graduation, I went for it!” Berdugo was again a big help. “Yogev introduced me to Israel,” noted Kaufman, who met various Israeli players and coaches through the basketball camp. “He introduced me to Matan Siman-Tov, who became my agent.”
Siman-Tov is currently Avdija's Israel agent.
“He tried to get me a deal, but they said they needed to see me play in real life,” noted Kaufman.
In 2014, Kaufman participated in a Birthright Israel trip.
“I had a great Birthright experience.” He decided to stay in Israel to shop around his basketball skills. He practiced with a team in Ramat Hasharon, caught the attention of several Israel team owners, and the
then-22-year-old was offered a contract for the 2014/15 season by Maccabi Hod Hasharon of the Israel National League.
“I made aliyah and bought a one-way flight! I had to have the mentality that I was not coming back [to the US].”
In Israel, Kaufman lived with his childhood friend from Florida, Nicolas “Nico” Olsak, a midfielder for the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team. Kaufman did not see much playing time that season which he notes “had its fair share of ups and downs.” The shooting guard acknowledges the style of play was different from what he was used to in the US and that he “needed time to adjust.”
Kaufman did not receive any offers at the end of the season to continue playing in Israel – “I didn't want to go out like that,” – he recalls – and tried out with Elizur Ashkelon, where he received an offer to play for the 2015/16 season. However, the team experienced financial problems, and Kafuman's playing career in Israel came to somewhat of an abrupt end.
Kaufman is very honest as he reflects on his Israel basketball careers.
“It was shaky. I did not have a lot of closure. It drove me to keep pursuing basketball somewhere else.”
Still, Kaufman loved the opportunity to play professional basketball and to play in Israel.
“Playing pro ball was a lifelong dream. Playing in Israel was super special. Tel Aviv is my favorite city in the world!”
While Kaufman hasn't played professionally since then, he has creatively carved out an impressive niche and presence in every part of the basketball world – from the NBA to youth basketball.
At 23, he returned to Florida and began coaching a third-grade travel team. After five months in Boca Raton, he realized that coaching “wasn't for me – I'll coach my own kids one day!”
He moved to New York to work for Overtime, a startup described on its website as “a sports network for the next generation of fans. We bring you the content of the stars and personalities you want to see.”
Kaufman has worked his way up in fourand-a-half years with Overtime.
The work soon expanded from part time to full time and the company went from five workers to 100 workers with offices in New York and Los Angeles. Since the company started, it has raised $33 million dollars. NBA All-Stars, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony have invested in Overtime.
Kaufman currently serves as Senior Manager, Social Strategy and Distribution.
He has media credentials for the New York Knicks, covers the NBA All Star Weekend, and regularly meets with such NBA stars as Zion Williamson, Wade, James Harden and Antetokounmpo.
Kaufman attended Williamson's last high school game and the state championships, played basketball with Wade at Chelsea Piers in New York, hung out with Harden and was invited by Nike to accompany Antetokounmpo for the launch of his sneaker in his hometown in Greece.
“It was so cool. He is such a down-toearth guy and I met his brothers, who also play in the NBA.”
While working with NBA stars is glamorous, Kaufman still feels a special connection to Israel.
“I went from playing in Israel and just five years later to working in sports media and doing a feature story on Deni and Yam Madar. Everything really came full circle for me at that moment. The mini-documentaries I produced ended up getting picked up by Israeli News outlets like Sport5 on TV in Israel. This really brought exposure to them and helped them grow on social media before they got drafted to the NBA.”
The hard-working Kaufman has a “side gig,” known as Better Bounce, a concept he first envisioned while playing basketball in Israel.
“I always had teammates and other basketball players asking me how I increase my vert[ical leap] and what I do to become more athletic and jump higher. I finally decided to monetize this in an effective way. Having everything online has allowed me to scale my expertise around the world to help as many athletes as possible.”
Kaufman describes Better Bounce as “a basketball lifestyle brand that specializes in making workout programs to help athletes improve their vert, overall athleticism and give them what they need to be successful on the basketball court.”
His videos have a tremendous following. On some, NBA players perform complex moves as Kaufman breaks them down and narrates over them so young players can work on mastering the moves on their own. More playful videos feature Kaufman in the air himself, like the one where he is vaulting over a woman.
“My fiancée lets me jump over her. This is how we built trust!”
The incredible numbers of viewers show just how popular and influential Kaufman is. He has had four videos in the past six months with over a million views
each. His “stats” include: 85,400 Instagram followers with 1.5 Million views in the past month; 358,700 followers on TikTok, with his videos having been “liked” 14.3 million times
(By comparison, other Israeli and Jewish basketball players – many with very successful careers – lag behind Kaufman in terms of Instagram followers: Gal Mekel: 23k, Jordan Farmar: 120k, Deni Avdija: 190k, Omri Casspi: 252k, Amar'e Stoudemire: 526k and Yam Madar: 37k.)
Kaufman is more than a basketball entrepreneur and influencer – he is a role model and a mensch, appreciated by both kids and adults. Kaufman personally replies to all questions submitted to him from kids.
“I want to be a resource so they can be better at basketball.”
He also cares about emotional well-being.
“I talk about mental health, post about how much sleep I get, nutrition, meditation and good habits.”
And colleagues value him. Danny Herz, long time director of Six Points Sports Academy, notes, “Mike is a special human being. In addition to his massive talent and his unmatched work ethic and drive, he is a great human being that is kind to everyone, appreciative of others, and unselfish to his core. I was fortunate to coach Mike back in the day, and he always made every team he was on better because not only was he a good player, he was a great teammate.”
Herz uses Better Bounce at his camp and says that “one of my favorite days at Six Points Sports Academy was when Mike came to visit. He brought his energy, his enthusiasm, his infectious smile, and his ability to entertain that day when he performed a series of slam dunks for our campers. Hundreds and hundreds of Jewish athletes cheered for him as he put on a show – and then inspired every camper to be the best versions of themselves with hard work and making good decisions.”
Berdugo, his childhood friend who hired him to work at his sports camp and opened doors for Kaufman in Israel, agrees.
“Mike took a talent, honed and mastered it, and became a world known dunker. He followed his dream and helps others do the same!”
Kaufman takes this role very seriously. “Growing up, I didn't know too many Jewish athletes who became professional athletes. I'd love to inspire the young generation to work hard and chase their dreams.”
In an enormous PR victory for the country that jails more journalists than any other in the world, The New York Times performed a shocking act of journalistic vandalism, crowing “Turkish Forces in Syria Protect 5 Million People” — subsequently re-titled to a still objectionable “In Turkey’s Safe Zone in Syria, Security and Misery Go Hand in Hand.”
This exercise in pro-Ankara propaganda neatly parrots the Turkish military occupation’s script. In so doing, it sidelines the ethnic cleansing of Afrin’s genuine local population, the Kurds, the forced Turkification of cultural heritage, and an unprecedented deterioration in human rights, particularly for women — all of which is being perpetrated in plain sight by a NATO member. A must-read account of the controversy surrounding this article, as well as rebuttal of its surrealistic narrative, is most trenchantly provided by The Jerusalem Post’s Seth Frantzman in his “NYT accused of whitewashing Turkey’s Afrin occupation.”
Justice for Kurds (“JFK”) – the advocacy organization that we established in 2018 – utterly rejects the concept of Western passivity in the face of such tragedy. JFK’s riposte to Turkish aggression, therefore, has been to call it as we see it and, rather than laying down, doubling down.
As perhaps the best exclamation mark to this call to action, on the very same day as the Afrin coverage debacle, another article was published in the outlet ForeignLobby.com under the title “Erdogan-bashing Kurdish advocacy group lobbies Biden for reset with Syrian Kurds.” This piece noted that last year, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, JFK published a two-page spread in the same New York Times, but in this instance titled “It’s Time to Break with Erdogan.” Against the visual backdrop of a bravely defiant Kurdish female soldier, we evidenced literally dozens of recent headlines from reputable publications calling Turkey to account for its malign behavior not just against the Kurdish people in Syria, Iraq and Turkey itself, but also in the Levant and broader Eastern Mediterranean, as well as North Africa and the Red Sea – not to mention its dubious, two-faced loyalty to NATO.
The problem goes beyond the Syrian Kurds’ struggle with Turkey, of course. The approximately 30 million Kurds of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria represent the world’s largest stateless ethnic minority for a reason. As if to underscore the curse of their geography, just the day before the Times released its story, the rockets of an Iranian proxy group rained down on Erbil, the capital city of the Kurdistan Regional Government (“KRG”) in Iraq. The main target of the attack was the airport where the US-led international coalition forces are stationed, but some of the fire fell on a residential area too, causing death and destruction.
This latest concomitant media smear of the Kurds of Syria and bombardment of the Kurds of Iraq have only reinforced JFK’s resolve to carry the banner for these true and loyal allies. As the first order of business, we respectfully submit that the Biden Administration consider the following initiatives:
• Declare, as we did in our October 2019 editorial “The American Munich,” that president Donald Trump’s betrayal of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (“SDF”) was a “disgrace that didn’t represent who Americans are, or how they can be relied upon to stand by their comrades-in-arms and friends;”
• Notwithstanding last Thursday’s excellent retaliatory response, in light of the unprovoked hostilities inflicted on Erbil – soon to be the address of the largest American consulate abroad – Washington should reaffirm America’s sustained commitment to the territorial integrity and safety of the KRG; and
• Honoring the letter and spirit of the Democratic Party Platform, continue to support the SDF and the KRG’s Peshmerga in our ongoing common battle against ISIS, and provide a material increase in humanitarian assistance to the Kurds and those minorities living safely and freely under their protection.
This should not be a heavy lift politically, as a quick glance at the membership of JFK’s Advisory Council would indicate. For of all the overwhelmingly bipartisan opportunities presented to the incoming Biden
Administration to demonstrate, in one fell stroke yet with considerable impact, that “America is Back” as an honorable and dependable ally – indeed, as a leader – the issue of the Kurds far and away constitutes the lowest hanging fruit.
We could not, after all, ask for more noble and reliable allies. The Kurds lost over 11,000 dead and 23,000 wounded in the brutal fight against our common enemy, the Islamic State – compared to our loss of fewer than a dozen heroic souls. Remarkably, the Kurds made this sacrifice while managing to uphold within their territories, during brutal wartime conditions, the region’s most earnest commitment to the universal values of religious tolerance, minority rights, gender equality, and an inclusive approach to refugees. Despite such colossal challenges, and in diametrical opposition to ongoing Turkish practices so extolled by The New York Times, let us all acknowledge in gratitude and solidarity that it is in fact the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria that today offer the real “Safe Zones” for millions.
The writers are co-founders of the nonprofit organization Justice for Kurds.
Bernard-Henri Lévy is a philosopher, activist, filmmaker and author of more than 30 books, including The Genius of Judaism, American Vertigo, Barbarism with a Human Face, Who Killed Daniel Pearl? and The Empire and the Five Kings. His latest book is The Virus in the Age of Madness.
Thomas S. Kaplan is an investor, conservationist and advocate for humanist values. He is the chairman of The Electrum Group as well as co-founder and chairman of Panthera and Justice for Kurds.
If Abraham serves as inspiration for a new Arab-Israeli peace, then Cyrus serves as aspiration for an Israeli-Iranian one. Where the United Arab Emirates succeeded at placing a satellite in orbit over Mars, the Iranian regime obsesses over developing a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear payload. It is an obsession that has led to destruction.
Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamist theocracy ruling Iran has demonized the State of Israel, terrorized the Jewish state, and pursued its annihilation. It cultivates hatred for Israel as a nation and for Jews as a people, but in the four decades since radical Islamists’ violent takeover, it has only managed to destroy Iran.
Israel has thrived. As a free nation it has prospered, now taking its legitimate place as a respected partner defining a regional peace that champions modernity over its medieval rivals.
Not only have Iran’s tyrants failed in their objective of eliminating Israel, their ideological hatreds have principally failed Iranians themselves. Today, respect and curiosity for the Israeli state on the Iranian street is common, especially among those who most despise Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s regime. Iranians yearn for restoring an open, modern and thriving nation, in great part imbued by pride for an ancient heritage and a pre-revolutionary, 20th-century modernism that celebrated cosmopolitan difference, religious freedom and friendship with Jews and Israel.
That ideological propaganda would fail to be convincing is nothing new. As with subjects under Communist and fascist regimes, Iranians have long resisted the Orwellian control exercised by ruling clerics, seen on state media, and read in school textbooks. To them, the regime’s opposition to Israel’s existence affirms precisely the opposite sentiment; a seduction also reflected in the Iranian people’s esteem for the “Great Satan,” for equality between sexes, the liberty to sing and dance, and the right to live free from fear, and to earn an honest living.
Iranians yearning for freedom at home and for peace with their neighbors have a special appreciation for Israel’s investments in
countering their tyrants. Iranians rejoiced in private and under the security of pseudonymous social media accounts on the occasion of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, upon the avalanche of information released from a hair-raising heist of a clandestine nuclear archive, the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear program, and the sabotage of regime infrastructure. They welcomed representations by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United Nations General Assembly and the US Congress about the regime’s nefarious activities, as well as his personal outreach to the Iranian people.
IRANIANS ARE keen to engage with Israel’s pro-freedom public diplomacy, not least because of the large numbers of Jews of Iranian descent who consecrate Iran’s noble history; a history that provided the world its first universal declaration of human rights, carved upon a clay cylinder, and exalted by Jews because it corroborates the events in the Old Testament: the liberation of Jews from Babylon by King Cyrus, and their safe return to Jerusalem to rebuild their Temple. Some 2,600 years ago, ancient Persian leadership cultivated a most modern sense of pluralism and peaceful co-existence, grounded in the universality of human rights.
Iran is also the burial place of Esther and Mordechai, and is still, despite the designs of regime fanatics, home to the largest community of Jews in the Middle East after the State of Israel. All of this makes peace and friendship between the people of Iran and Israel grounded in common history and most natural. It also underscores the sad irony of the Iranian people being left outside the triumphant peace agreements the Abraham Accords afford.
Victoria Coates and Len Khodorkovsky have the hopeful idea of investing in the “Cyrus Accords,” a promise to revive an ancient bond between Iran and Israel. For Iranians to reach this destiny with Israel, changing a regime obsessed with war holds primacy over all else. With an American turn from maximum pressure to “Appeasement 2.0,” Israel and her allies could undertake a historic effort strengthening the democratic resilience of the people of Iran. Naysayers will be abundant, but support for the struggle of dissidents, labor organizers, women’s-rights activists, student leaders and ordinary Iranians
against one of the world’s most brutal tyrannies is not for the faint-hearted.
Israel and its like-minded partners can commit to:
1) supporting robust Persian-language broadcasting focused on Iran’s democracy movement, its tolerant past, and the opportunities of Israel’s flourishing democratic society,
2) a transparency initiative to expose the anatomy of how Khamenei’s cohorts raid the people’s treasury in exporting terrorism and war,
3) an international awareness campaign about the regime’s human rights atrocities, its antisemitism, and its Holocaust-denial,
4) providing sustained and emergency access for Iranians to organize online, particularly during regime shutdowns, and
5) establishing a Cyrus Trust for civic institutions that span the academy, arts, history and civil society, bridging Iranian, Israeli and Arab peoples.
The most disruptive investment that can be made against the regime’s four-decade war machine are in the very ideas that animate human life. The irreducible concept of the rights, dignity and liberty of every person holds a longevity from three millennia into our past, capable of surviving a temporary installation of medieval tyrants. In this, the promise of Abraham and of Cyrus can serve as a guide for the basis of unity between the peoples of the region.
Mariam Memarsadeghi is a leading proponent for a democratic Iran. Shuvaloy Majumdar is former director of policy to Canada’s foreign minister and Munk senior fellow for foreign policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.