CAIR Opposes Nomination of U.N. Ambassador Nominee Heather Nauert

Heather Nauert

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the Trump administration to withdraw its nomination of Heather Nauert for the position of U.N. ambassador, saying she is "Unqualified and Islamophobic."

Early next year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a nomination hearing for Nauert. CAIR is urging the Senate and members of the Foreign Relations Committee to oppose and vote "NO" on Nauert's nomination for the position of U.N. ambassador.

⏩ TAKE ACTION ⏪

Urge the U.S. Senate to Reject Islamophobic' U.N. Ambassador Nominee Heather Nauert

CAIR said Nauert promoted Islamophobic smears while employed as a Fox News anchor.

In 2013, she criticized special swim classes for a group of Somali-American girls, describing the classes as the "minority becoming the majority at one community pool. Sharia law is now changing everything."

In a 2009 Fox special on "stealth jihad," she interviewed Islamophobic panelists, including notorious Islamophobes like Robert Spencer, Frank Gaffney and Nonie Darwish, who claims that "Islam should be feared, and should be fought, and should be conquered, and defeated, and annihilated." Nauert has also defended Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric.

⏩ SEE: Trump's New State Department Spokesperson Spread Anti-Muslim Hate as Fox News Anchor 

Nauert previously bashed refugee students in Pennsylvania for wanting "an even better" public education and falsely claimed that child migrants from Central America were "an illegal health risk."

Other than her current position as State Department spokesperson, Nauert has no apparent diplomatic or government experience or expertise.

"Heather Nauert does not represent our nation's diversity or its commitment to treating all Americans with equality and respect," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.

"Such an important post should not be occupied by someone who is clearly unqualified and Islamophobic," said CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw. "There are many other individuals who do have the knowledge and background necessary for this post. Ms. Nauert's nomination should be withdrawn."

In June, CAIR applauded the decision by members of the United Nation's International Organization for Migration (IOM) to reject President Trump's nominee for the position of director general to lead the organization, a post held by Americans since 1951.

It was reported that members of the IMO rejected Isaacs's nomination due to his past Islamophobic statements and in response to Trump administration policies such as the Muslim ban and migrant family separations.

⏩ SEE: CAIR Welcomes Rejection of Trump's Islamophobic Nominee for U.N. Migration Post 

CAIR has reported an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims, immigrants and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president. The Washington-based civil rights organization has also repeatedly expressed concern about Islamophobic and racist Trump administration policies and appointments.

The Washington-based organization's recently-released 2018 Civil Rights Report, "Targeted," showed a 17 percent increase in bias-motivated incidents against American Muslims from 2016 to 2017, and a 15 percent increase in the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in that same time period. Preliminary data for 2018 indicate that there have been 927 hate incidents targeting American Muslims.

"Targeted" - CAIR’s 2018 civil rights report (image via LoupDargent.info)

⏩ New CAIR Report: Trump's Muslim Bans Increased Anti-Muslim Discrimination, Violence

SOURCE: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Yes, Mary Knew: Biography by Irene Baron Details God's Plan for Mary

"MARY KNEW - A Biography of Mary from Ancient Scriptures" - Book Cover 

Ohio native, Irene Baron, is irritated whenever she hears the song, "Mary, Did You Know?" She stated, "That beautiful song gives the wrong impression.  If people think Mary was an average teenager, they're in for a big surprise! Mary and almost everyone in Galilee knew her destiny."

Based on eyewitness testimony by James, the youngest son of Joseph, Baron explains exactly what Mary knew. She reports that Mary's story is filled with angels, miracles and fulfilling of prophecies.

Baron wrote the book, MARY KNEW – A Biography of Mary from Ancient Scriptures, in the historical narrative format as reading scriptures is difficult for some people. 

Her readers will learn that: 

• God named, blessed, and consecrated Mary to be the mother of His Son before Mary's conception. 
• Messenger angels told her parents Mary would be the most important woman to be born on Earth. 
• Angels dictated what her parents were to feed her, how to care for her, and to move her to the Jerusalem Temple at age three. 
• Living in the Temple for over a decade, Mary conversed daily with angels who fed her. 
• During that time she made a holy vow to God which created later difficulties.

Irene Baron's book provides details about hardships Mary's parents endured, Mary's birth, her first 3 years, the Temple years, a very reluctant Joseph, the rough betrothal, and the birth of Jesus.

James' eyewitness account of Christ's birth describes a holy phenomenon not witnessed since. 

Baron reports, "People tell me they get chills reading about the birth because of the miracles that occurred when it happened."

Bible scholars report that James' scriptures were not placed in the New Testament because that section of the Bible was composed of books about Jesus, not His mother. 

James became a chief Apostle and was the first Bishop of Christian churches in Jerusalem. His scriptures were used in the Christian churches for hundreds of years.

Author & Speaker, Irene Baron

An expert and speaker about the Virgin Mary, Irene Baron earlier discovered the Christmas star using NASA provided software. Her award-winning nonfiction book, Unraveling the Christmas Star Mystery, tells the story of that famous star.

⏩ Both books are available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com 

SOURCE: Irene Baron

America's Dark History of Organized Anti-Semitism Re-emerges in Today's Far-Right Groups

A memorial outside Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue on Oct. 29, 2018, erected after a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the temple. (AP/Gene J. Puskar)

Hours after Robert Bowers allegedly walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 people, investigators told the media that Bowers appeared to have acted alone and fit what experts call the “lone mass shooter profile.”

Weeks later, FBI agents arrested a Washington D.C. man who followed Bowers on social media. He had told relatives he wanted to pursue the same path and start “a race revolution.”

Bowers may well have lived a solitary life, beyond his frequent presence on social media. Yet the fact that his violent act triggered a would-be emulator highlights an essential facet of prejudice – especially anti-Semitism.

As I show in my book, “Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States,” anti-Semitic violence is never solely the product of a single deluded mind, as the United States’ dark history of organized prejudice reveals. Instead, it is the product of a unique culture of hatred that originated in the mid-20th century and persists to this day.

This aspect of history is rarely found in textbooks. Yet it is critical to understand the continuing influence that homegrown, modern American anti-Semitism has had on the country’s history and continues to exert today.

In 1939, Fritz Kuhn addressed 20,000 people at a Madison Square Garden rally celebrating Nazism.

Local discrimination
Some forms of American anti-Semitism have been examined and confronted. Many existed at the local level and had a major impact on Jewish communities all over the U.S.

For decades, restrictive covenants in home deeds forbade Jews from buying homes in certain neighborhoods. Some country clubs excluded Jews from membership or even playing their courses as guests. Some Ivy League universities set quotas limiting the number of Jewish students they would admit.

These forms of personal, localized discrimination date back to the earliest days of the American Republic and persisted until relatively recently. Their decline can largely be traced to the passage and enforcement of anti-discrimination laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Other forms of anti-Semitism, however, have not disappeared as rapidly or completely. This is where the dark American history of organized anti-Semitism has particular relevance to the present day.

Group prejudice
A good starting point for understanding this past can be found in Donald S. Strong’s 1941 book “Organized Anti-Semitism in America: The Rise of Group Prejudice During the Decade 1930-40.”

Strong demonstrated that both anti-Semitic sentiment and the number of explicitly anti-Semitic groups increased rapidly during the Depression. Organized anti-Semitism, Strong argued, appeared in the U.S. only after World War I. Previous forms of the prejudice, he claimed, “had expressed itself primarily in terms of social discrimination” rather than through the creation of specifically anti-Semitic groups.

In other words, organized anti-Semitism in the United States was a purely 20th-century phenomenon. Strong claimed that between 1933 and 1941, a dozen new anti-Semitic organizations had been founded each year.

“The anti-semitic movement in the United States,” he presciently concluded, “can no longer be treated as if it were a transient phenomenon.”

The two most important groups Strong examined were the German American Bund and the Silver Legion, also known as the Silver Shirts.

German-American Bund parade in New York City in 1939. New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)

Symbol was the swastika 
The Bund, founded in 1936, was theoretically a German-American heritage organization. In reality, its leader – a German immigrant and naturalized American named Fritz Kuhn – chose the swastika as its symbol and insisted members, including children in summer camps, wear Nazi-style uniforms.

The group’s motto was “Free America,” which its followers understood to be an America freed from supposed Jewish oppression. The Bund had dozens of local chapters and a following that Kuhn claimed exceeded 200,000 nationwide. Other contemporary estimates put it considerably lower.

Kuhn’s time as an aspiring American Hitler ended after a raucous mass rally in Madison Square Garden in February 1939.

Addressing the rally, Kuhn declared that if George Washington had still been alive, he would be a Nazi.

Outraged at what he was hearing, a Jewish hotel worker, Isadore Greenbaum, rushed the stage during Kuhn’s address and was badly beaten by Kuhn’s bodyguards. Outside the Garden, Bund supporters clashed with anti-Nazi demonstrators and police officers.

A post-rally investigation revealed that Kuhn’s interests lay beyond emulating Hitler. He had been skimming money from the Bund’s accounts for personal use. Kuhn was subsequently prosecuted, convicted and eventually deported to West Germany after the war.

From screenwriter to anti-Semite
Kuhn was not the only leader of organized anti-Semitism in this era. The Silver Legion was similar to the Bund and commanded a nationwide following. Its “Chief,” William Dudley Pelley, was a former screenwriter who shared Kuhn’s dictatorial aspirations.

Like the Bund, the Legion was explicitly anti-Semitic and called for the segregation of Jews into ghettos. Silver Shirts across the country armed themselves, trained for a race war and encouraged Americans to “Buy Gentile.”

Also like Kuhn, Pelley was brought down by his own corruption. He had defrauded investors in a previous business venture to help fund the Legion. He was later indicted for sedition and would spend World War II fighting a series of legal cases from behind bars.

The movements both men built did not disappear with their incarceration, as declassified FBI files show. Certainly, their members did not simply cease to hold anti-Semitic views when their leaders were imprisoned.

Where did they go?
Historians know little about what happened to former Bund members and Silver Shirts after World War II. But media figures of the Depression era like Father Charles Coughlin – who had a radio audience in the tens of millions – also did much to popularize anti-Semitism. Recordings of Coughlin’s anti-Semitic radio broadcasts, along with Pelley’s writings, remain popular on far-right social media today.

As Strong recognized, the 20th century saw the emergence of a new and potentially violent anti-Semitism fundamentally based in Nazi-esque ideas and, in the 1930s, Hitler worship.

William Dudley Pelley and members of the Silver Legion of America. Public domain

The only recorded instance of the Ku Klux Klan lynching a Jewish person – Leo Frank – took place in 1915, as World War I raged in Europe. While the Klan had previously focused its ire on African-Americans and Catholics, the move to anti-Semitism updated its appeal to racists facing the changing world of the 20th century.

Frank’s lynching is generally considered to have galvanized support for the previously declining group. In other words, violent and organized anti-Semitism became one of the ideological underpinnings of this leading American radical right group.

It continues to underpin the ideology of radical right groups today. Like Robert Bowers, the anti-Semites of the 21st century prepare for racial warfare and rant about Jews “committing genocide to my people.” They are following directly in the footsteps of America’s 20th-century leaders of organized anti-Semitism.

Past as prologue
American anti-Semitism doesn’t just hurt Jews. Racial and religious prejudice of various sorts have proven corrosive to the American social fabric in the past, for instance, in the Jim Crow-era South, where racist laws denied African-Americans their civil rights. And the United States’s geopolitical rivals – Russia, for instance – view the inflammation of these tensions on social media as a means to undermine the American political system.

Historians and educators can ensure that this dark aspect of U.S. history is included in textbooks and wider cultural memory. By confronting America’s dark past of organized anti-Semitism, it may be possible to recognize it in the present and see it as a more common part of our culture than most Americans would like to acknowledge.

That recognition can lead, possibly, to escaping the shadow that the 1930s still cast over the country today.

About Today's Contributor:
Bradley W. Hart, Assistant Professor of Media, Communications and Journalism, California State University, Fresno

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

Hippie-Child, Cult Survivor Rachel Israel Releases 'Counterculture Crossover' - a Tell-All Untold Story of the Love Israel Family

"Counterculture Crossover" - Front Cover

Life Story Press has published "Counterculture Crossover," a tell-all memoir of what it was like to survive growing up in one of the most unconventional, controversial, communal groups in recent time. 

The author Rachel Israel says, "This will be like a bomb going off among ex-Love Family members. The hidden truth is now out there."

"Counterculture Crossover" is a remarkable memoir that tells the story of Israel's childhood growing up in the Love Israel Family. Israel's mother Karen was a free-spirited idealist who wanted nothing to do with conventional, mainstream society. 

She "dropped-out" and lived off-the-grid, which led Israel to a variety of places, including Alaska and Hawaii. Mother and daughter ended up at the doorstep of the Love Family, where Israel spent eight years of her childhood.

The Love Family was an isolated, patriarchal, religious community that did not go by the rules or laws of modern society. Members sought to live the utopian dream but ended up living without their rights and without autonomy. 

In "Counterculture Crossover," Israel exposes the darkest secrets that have never been revealed about the community, including group marriage, polygamy, sacrament rituals, and animal sacrifice. Israel covers everything from what it was like to live in Army tents and yurts on the communal farm to answering other questions on controversial topics such as the trouble the group had with cult deprogrammers kidnapping their members.

Rob Balch, retired professor emeritus in the department of sociology at the University of Montana, says in part of his review of the memoir, "Among the thousands of communal experiments of the late 1960s and early '70s, the Love Family was one of the biggest and most successful, as well one of the most controversial. Opponents accused it of brainwashing and child abuse, whereas supporters saw it as an admirable social experiment and a welcome addition to Seattle's diverse cultural scene. Yet, surprisingly little has been written about the Love Family, and, until now, nothing at all from the perspective of a second-generation member."

"Hippie-Child" Rachel Israel

Israel has pursued a career working in the field of psychology to help those in need fight for personal transformation and justice. Her memoir is a similar pursuit, an attempt to give voice to the voiceless - children raised in alternative communal groups or cults. Israel has a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in psychology. She continues to live with her family in the Northwest in the country outside of Seattle.

Given the current state of society and answers people are seeking, Israel, through her memoir, seeks to explore what happens when people are desperate for change. Israel explores those ideas based on her observations and memories of being raised communally by those at the creative tip of society. 

⏩ "Counterculture Crossover" is now available on Amazon.

SOURCE: Life Story Press

Dallas Holocaust Museum Presents Anne Frank Exhibit Addressing Current-Day Issues of Identity, Exclusion, and Discrimination

Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank - Poster (image via the Dallas Holocaust Museum website)

The Dallas Holocaust Museum will host the Texas debut of a year-long, newly created special exhibition opening September 13th called Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank.

Let Me Be Myself tells the story of Anne Frank in a modern way, addressing current-day issues of identity, exclusion, and discrimination. Anne's experiences connect deeply with today's youth as they grow and learn that all actions and words matter.

⏩ This exhibition will also feature the U.S. premiere of a Virtual Reality (VR) component from Force Field VR and Oculus Studios that allows the visitor to travel back in time to Anne Frank's hiding place, the "Secret Annex." In a one-of-a-kind experience, visitors will be drawn into the world in which Anne Frank lived—in the shadows of genocide and war.

Free with admission, VR tours are available in 15-minute sessions from 1 to 3 p.m. daily, but must be booked online. Participants cannot be pregnant, infirm, have pre-existing binocular vision abnormalities or psychiatric disorders, or suffer from heart or other serious medical conditions.

Let Me Be Myself: The Life Story of Anne Frank is an exhibition visitors will not soon forget. The exhibition is available in seven languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese Dutch, Portuguese, and Chinese-simplified). 

"Anne Frank's story is timeless and beloved, cherished for its universal truths and relevance to all those who face discrimination and exclusion in their daily lives in the 21st century," said Mary Pat Higgins, Dallas Holocaust Museum President and CEO. "Her optimism during one of the darkest times in history has proven to be an enduring inspiration for audiences across the generations."

Let Me Be Myself was developed by the Anne Frank House and is sponsored in North America by the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect. Exhibition Sponsors: Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District, Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas, Fox Rothschild, LLP, Texas Instruments, KPMG, Omni Dallas Hotel.

About the Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance:

The Dallas Holocaust Museum's mission is to teach the history of the Holocaust and advance human rights to combat prejudice, hatred, and indifference. 

⏩ For more information, visit DallasHolocaustMuseum.org.

SOURCE: Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center for Education and Tolerance

Dallas Holocaust Museum Related Story:

• Reformed neo-Nazi Christian Picciolini to Share His Story at Dallas Holocaust Museum Upstander Speaker Series Event

New Book By Islamophobia Expert Destroys The Myth That Muslims Equal Terrorism

New book by Internationally Known Islamophobia expert tackles tough issues and urges readers to assume the best of our Muslim neighbors

We live in a time when it is almost impossible to stay informed on every issue in the news. It takes willingness and effort to go beyond the surface and biased sound bites. Todd H. Green's new book, Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn't Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism (Fortress Press 2018), serves as both a primer and an invitation for self-reflection.

A 2001 to 2007 Gallup Poll revealed that 93 percent of the world's Muslim population believed the 9/11 attacks unjustified. Another study from the Muslim Public Affairs Council found that one in three al-Qaeda terrorist plots between 9/11 and 2011 were disrupted with the aid of Muslim Americans. 

Muslims speak out against terrorism all the time. Yet, a disheartening pattern has emerged in the West whenever acts of terror occur. Almost immediately, public figures ask the same question: "Why don't Muslims speak out against terrorism?" The implication—Muslims don't speak out—is obvious.

According to Green, it really isn't a question but a condemnation, because it "wrongly assumes Islam is the driving force behind terrorism." Moreover, he says this assumption diverts our attention from unjust Western violence, preventing us from confronting our own troubling history.

Green, a religious studies professor and former advisor to the US State Department under both the Trump and Obama administrations, debunks other myths, showing how ISIS actually targets Muslims more than any other group and why politics matter more than religion in driving terrorism.

Ultimately, Green argues, "It's time to end the distractions and to spend more energy on coming to terms with unjust Western violence." Only then can we honestly assess the causes of violence, stop relying on damaging stereotypes, and begin to ask better questions of our Muslim neighbors. 

More About "Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn't Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism":

(Via Fortress Press)

All of us should condemn terrorism–whether the perpetrators are Muslim extremists, white supremacists, Marxist revolutionaries, or our own government. But it's time for us to stop asking Muslims to condemn terrorism under the assumption they are guilty of harboring terrorist sympathies or promoting violence until they prove otherwise. Renowned expert on Islamophobia Todd Green shows us how this line of questioning is riddled with false assumptions that say much more about "us" than "them."

Green offers three compelling reasons why we should stop asking Muslims to condemn terrorism:
1) The question wrongly assumes Islam is the driving force behind terrorism.
2) The question ignores the many ways Muslims already condemn terrorism.
3) The question diverts attention from unjust Western violence.

This book is an invitation for self-examination when it comes to the questions we ask of Muslims and ourselves about violence. It will open the door to asking better questions of our Muslim neighbors, questions based not on the presumption of guilt but on the promise of friendship.

⏩ Download the free Discussion Guide

About The Author:

Todd H. Green teaches at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. 

He is a sought-after speaker, giving lectures on college campuses and to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Green's work has appeared in the Huffington Post, and his expertise has been cited by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for American Progress, the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He has been interviewed by CNN, NPR, and Al Jazeera. 

He is the author of The Fear of Islam.

SOURCE: Fortress Press

"At Vitoria": A Spanish City's Medieval Promise Between Christians and Sephardic Jews

"At Vitoria" - front cover (PRNewsfoto/Archway Publishing)

How could a medieval Jewish cemetery cause so much debate? 

"At Vitoria" by Marcia Riman Selz transports the reader from 1950's Bayonne, France back to medieval Spain and weaves a story of success, love, terror, tragedy, shame, and honor. 

The historical and cultural details make for an evocative narrative that draw the reader in and provide an engaging sense of realism.

"At Vitoria" introduces the reader to the CREVAGOS, a Jewish family that copes with adversity and trauma amid joy and daily needs, while living under the shadow of the Spanish Inquisition. Hard work, intelligence and clever spirit create a family of survivors. 

"At Vitoria" is also the story of how, in 1492 when Jews are expelled from Spain, the Christians of Vitoria, grateful to Jewish physicians for saving lives, take an oath to preserve the Jewish cemetery. 

Almost 500 years later, this promise draws raw emotions from both Christians and Jews.

"'At Vitoria' is based on actual historical events and has relevance for today's world," said Selz. "The medieval Christians and Jews of this novel and their descendants show that respect for individual differences, honor, and strength of spirit can generate very desirable results."

Kirkus Review calls the book "a well-constructed, highly informative historical novel."

"The novel's strength is in its descriptions of the traditions and daily living of a medieval Jewish family," stated a BlueInk Review.

"At Vitoria" is a heart wrenching, but ultimately heart-warming read, with a life-affirming message. It is sure to cause smiles, tears, and renewed pride in humanity.

Marcia Riman Selz (Via marciarimanselz.com)

About the author:

Marcia Riman Selz, PhD has had a long career as a marketing consultant to financial institutions. However, after a vacation in Spain, she felt compelled to write about Vitoria and the extraordinary events surrounding the city's medieval Jewish cemetery. Selz is working on her next novel about growing up on the south side of Chicago. 

⏩ "At Vitoria: A City's Medieval Promise between Christians and Sephardic Jews" By Marcia Riman Selz is available at the Archway Publishing Online Bookstore, Amazon and Barnes & Noble

SOURCE: Archway Publishing

The LGBT Israel Task Force and Creator of Eurovision's Winning Song "Toy" Fight For The Israeli LGBT Community and Present: "Waiting In Youtube's Antechamber"

Doron Medalie hosts Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit - two well-known filmmakers in the LGBT community - and authors of the new ‘Haneshef’ movie starring trans model and actress Stav Strashko.

The LGBT Israel Task Force ('The Aguda') and renowned Israeli composer and song writer Doron Medalie are launching together with Google a very unusual YouTube experience. 

This experience will effectively turn pre-roll ads into a waiting room where people wanting to listen to one of Medalie's many hits will have to patiently wait, while listening to a series of interviews. 

But with Medalie's songs figuring in most Israelis' playlists, the LGBT Israel Task Force have essentially hacked the medium and ensured their message is heard through YouTube. 

With close to 50 musical hits, the campaign has not gone unnoticed and to boot, Medalie has tailored every pre-roll's opening statement to suit the title of the song chosen and kick off the discussion of LGBT rights from a different angle. So if the song chosen was 'Aba' (which means Dad in Hebrew), the pre-roll's opening statement related to the fact the LGBT community in Israel is barred from adopting or using a surrogate to become a parent. If the song chosen was "Heaven" – the opening statement alludes the fact that Spain is gay heaven, as gays are allowed to marry there, but not in Israel.

The YouTube virtual waiting room is in fact a two and a half hour long pre-roll ad that will be activated every time someone plays one of Medalie's songs. This will be a waiting room where viewers will be invited to join Medalie, as he talks to friends and guests about the subject of LGBT rights until they are granted to them by law.

Among the guests hosted in Medalie's antechamber are some of the country's leading music stars like Noa Kirl, Eliad Nahum, Stephan, Nikki Goldstein, Gal Ochovsky and many other artists and celebrities, as well as representatives of the various bodies that are taking part in the LGBT community's struggle. 

This includes the members of the parents of gay children organization 'Tehila', youngsters belonging to 'IGY' (The Israeli Gay Youth organization) and other people; homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders and activists, who are outraged by the injustice and current state of affairs. 

To truly understand the extent of this campaign and its pervasiveness, it must be taken into account that Medalie is one of the country's most prolific song writers. According to Israeli music copyright organization 'Acum', it is estimated that in 2018, no less than 10 hit songs written and composed by Doron Medalie are played at any given wedding in Israel. Songs like "Tel Aviv", "Revolution of Joy," "Just Want to Dance," "Caramel," "Golden Boy" (Eurovision 2016), "Melted from You", "Tikritas", "I Built on You", "Wai Li", "Bereshit Olam" and more. 

The pre-rolls which play before any of Medalie's hit songs are meant to illustrate the irony in the fact that while Medalie's songs are used to celebrate weddings, he himself can only be a guest at those weddings, as gays do not have the right to marry in Israel.

Doron Medalie is a well-known music composer and song writer and an active, outspoken member of the LGBT community. This is a community for which he has actively campaigned by promoting a message of equality and love in Israeli society. 

And while until recently, Medalie was essentially a well-known figure within the confines of the Israeli borders, he broke onto the International scene and the public's consciousness this year as the composer and writer of Neta Barzilai's winning song - TOY – which took home the first prize at the much acclaimed Eurovision Song Contest.

Now Medalie is harnessing the extensive press coverage he received to further the rights of Israeli homosexuals, lesbians and trans-genders and make sure the Israeli Parliament grants them equal rights by law – a fight that touches him and many of his friends on a very personal level.  

This is a struggle which he has been walking for the past two years with the BBR Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, that has shouldered his efforts by working together with him on a variety of projects including last month's #Proudstrikers project – a one-day nationwide strike urging the LGBT community to stay away from work and demand their equal rights. A point he is now trying to drive home even further.

When asked why he is doing this, Medalie says "The time has come to put things on the table and call a spade a spade: I am Doron Medalie, a homosexual and a second-class citizen in the State of Israel. For the past 20 years, I have been working behind the scenes to promote culture and further the status of artists in Israel – as a law abiding, tax paying citizen should. But here is where the absurdity of it all lies: I, in fact, fall in the highest tax paying bracket in Israel. That means that hundreds of thousands of shekels that I earn, go towards funding segments of the population, whose representatives do everything in their power so that I remain a second-class citizen, voting against laws designed to equalize my status."

"Over the past two years, I have had long brainstorming sessions with the BBR Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, who generously volunteered to accompany me on my journey," says Medalie. "One of those sessions generated the #Proudstrikers idea which saw over 100,000 people take to the streets in protest, but more importantly pushed Israeli decision makers to take a stand and decide on which side of this issue they want to be.

The brands and companies that joined in the protest last month moved me very much, but it will be more significant to see how much effort and thought they put into caring for their LGBT employees once the issue has moved out of the newspaper headlines. On a personal level, I felt it was my duty to contribute to the LGBT struggle by creating a personal protest campaign, because I have the tools to do that in a way that cannot be ignored. So in the next few days, I'm taking over YouTube. Every time you look for one of the songs I've written or listen to a playlist that has one of my songs in it, an ad will appear and you'll see me talking. Instead of skipping the 'pre roll ad' viewers will be invited to listen. Because what we created is not an ad – but material designed to make you think, act and hopefully also contribute by signing our petition."

⏩ Click here to see the dedicated website and sign the petition ⏪

About Doron Medalie:

Doron Medalie is an Israeli songwriter, composer and artistic director. His song "Toy" won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018. 

A graduate of the School of Music, Habima National Theatre and Alon high-school for the performing arts, he is one of Israel's most successful hit-makers.  

Doron has written over 250 songs, ballads, Middle Eastern pop songs, children songs, soundtracks and theme songs for TV for some of Israel's most prominent artists and shows. 

⏩ As an outspoken gay man, Medalie is a well-known activist for Israeli LGBT rights.  

To learn more, he can be found on Facebook or his body of work is available on YouTube.

About The Aguda:

The Aguda - Israel's LGBT Task Force was founded in 1975 as a non-profit organization for the LGBT community. 

Since its establishment the Aguda has striven to improve the LGBT community's standing in Israel to achieve equal rights, and security. 

The Aguda works in partnership with all the LGBT organizations in Israel. 

To learn more about The Aguda, visit www.lgbt.org.il/english 

SOURCE: The LGBT Israel Task Force (‘The Aguda’) and Doron Medalie

The Pre Roll Intro Video: