Dutch 12-year-old friends "Secrets of War," Summer 1943
The Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival will present the Dutch World War II drama, "Secrets of War" tonight at the Laemmle Music Hall Theater. In 1943, two young best friends in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands find their bond put to the supreme test in this bittersweet ode to innocence lost. Inseparable childhood friends in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands find their loyalty severely tested in the family-friendly, coming-of-age story. Summer 1943, 12-year-old best friends Tuur and Lambert are all but oblivious to the dangers of the war. Days are spent going to school and playing in the caves outside their idyllic village in Limburg. But the realities of war set in and begin to divide families. Tuur’s family joins the resistance movement, while Lambert’s parents, allied with the Nazi party, force him to join the Nazi Youth. Their relationship suffers a greater strain with the arrival of Maartje, a girl with a mysterious identity. As they compete for her attention, jealousy and betrayal set in motion a series of events that will alter their lives forever. High school students in the Righteous Conversations Workshop bring to the screen Holocaust survivor, Curt Lowens’ story of escape and resistance during World War II in Holland, where he placed and cared for hundreds of Jewish children in hiding. Presented in partnership with Holland Hollywood and the Consulate General of the Netherlands
Mr. Curt Lowens, who survived WWII with the Dutch Resistance, will be honored with a humanitarian award and the screening of the short subject "A Life of Changes." Mr. Lowens shares his concerns about the complacency of westerners towards the spread of the Islamic State / ISIS.
Mr. Lowens brings the Holocaust lesson that conditions of freedom and tolerance towards Jews can change in an instant.
Is the Obama Administration working to marginalize Zionistic Americans as "unpatriotic" or "unreasonable?" Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post explores Was Chuck Hagel nominated out of spite? 2/15/13
... What is unprecedented is to appoint a high national security official because the president is peeved about someone else.
Politico reports: The president feels personally invested in the nomination of Hagel. The Nebraska Republican is one of the few politicians he’s truly friendly with, and Obama plans to see the fight through, barring some major unforeseen development.
Democrats close to the White House say the typically cool-headed Obama has expressed flashes of real anger at what he sees as a politically motivated GOP fishing expedition that already netted his first choice for secretary of state — U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice.
Obama — ticked off by Rice’s treatment and still emboldened by his convincing victory over Mitt Romney — courted confrontation when he tapped Hagel. If true, this is outlandish. The president would imperil national security out of spite?
"Jonathan Tobin has a piece, "Jewish Groups Must End Silence on Hagel" up at Commentary that concludes as follows:
The great irony, of course, is that while Hagel complains about the malicious power of the “Jewish lobby” Jewish organizations, with the notable exception of the Zionist Organization of America, have been almost entirely quiet regarding this toxic nomination of an unqualified bigot for the post of Secretary of Defense. The western progressive-left tends to think that the “Jewish lobby” or the “Israel lobby” or AIPAC, or perhaps just the Jews as a whole, have a strangle-hold over the United States government.
We don’t.
It is a lie - and when influential people such as former Senator Chuck Hagel promote that lie they are spreading an ideological cancer of the sort that can have exceedingly dangerous consequences. This is precisely the kind of thing that most American Jewish organizations were created to oppose and, yet, they are silent. Jewish Democrats today, in the various pro-Israel / pro-Jewish non-profit organizations, seem incapable of mustering the fortitude to stand up to president Barack Obama. By failing to do so they offer cover to Jewish congressional politicians, such as Chuck Schumer or Dianne Feinstein, who themselves remain supine before this president.
By refusing to accept the Hagel nomination without some further inquiry, the Republican Party has offered Jewish groups a golden opportunity to stand up for the best interests of the Jewish people, not to mention the best interests of the American people, through loudly and strongly and insistently opposing this nomination.
If the state of Israel means anything, it means Jewish people standing up for themselves in their own defense. It means the resurrection not just of Jewish autonomy on traditionally Jewish land, but the resurrection of the Hebrew language and the creating and nurturing of Jewish culture in the arts and cinema and literature. What the Israelis have created is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle because they have done something never before seen in the history of the planet. They resurrected the national life of a people that wandered the earth, lost and desolate for two thousand years.
If Israeli Jews can do that, why cannot American Jews grow a spine and stand up for themselves? AIPAC knows that Hagel is a potential nightmare, so why must they remain silent? What good are they if they will not fight the very fights that they were created for to begin with? I understand that it is counterproductive to fight battles that one is doomed to lose, but we are not doomed to lose this one if we would kindly show a little muscle and a little self-respect.
(Robert Kunst of Shalom Int'l outside the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC)
Hagel is bad news and the world-wide Jewish community knows it, but the world-wide Jewish community has no say in who Congress affirms as the Secretary of Defense of the United States. But Jewish Americans do have a say and if we fail to make our voices heard in opposition to a clear and present danger than we let down the Jewish people as a whole.
Something like 80 percent of American Jews, including me, voted for Barack Obama during his first election for the presidency in 2008. Something like 69 percent, without me, voted for Barack Obama during his second election for the presidency last year. Immediately upon securing his second term in office president Obama turned around and thanked his Jewish supporters with a nice smack in the head with this Hagel nomination.
I say that it is time to stand up… long past time, actually."
Pres. Obama has again turned down Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's offer to meet during his visit to Washington during the first week of March. Obama opts instead to meet with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. LatmaTV parodies Obama's intentions in planning his March trip to the Mid-East.
President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a chilly press conference following their White House meeting about whether the 2 countries can afford to wait and see whether current sanctions will deter Iran's mullah regime enough to abandon their nuclear weapons development.
Bob Kunst of Shalom International drove from Florida to the White House, sleeping in his car in the cold, winter night, to protest Obama's abandoning Israel to challenge Iran's offensive nuclear weapons alone.
Meanwhile, nearby, 13,000 people attended the AIPAC Policy Conference- but only 2 (Australian-Israeli Ari and your reporter) showed-up to support Israel against a loud, well-organized throng of hard-leftist activists from Occupy- DC and Code:Pink.
Anglo-Israeli, Ari, is appalled when confronted by the leftist anti-Zionist rally outside of the White House visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Ari says that these anti-Israel rallies are reminiscent of the Nazi campaign rallies organized around "cleansing the world" of Jews- which brought them to power and empowered the public to serve-up their Jewish citizens for annihilation.
Museum of Tolerance / Simon Wiesenthal Center's Rabbi Marvin Hier warns the world to recognize Islamism as the heir-to-Hitler's crusade for global domination, under the banner of anti-Zionism. "30 Years After," a new Iranian-Jewish social-activist group held its first Civic Action Conference in Beverly Hills in September. Foundational advisor, George Haroonian, makes introduction, with reference to Persian Jewish familiarity with both resistance against the Nazis and Iran's Islamist crusade.
