views

for openers

Global Holocaust
Commemoration
Initiative

Talk With
Animals

M

ore fun than a barrel of
monkeys.” “Stop horsing
around!”
If these expressions have ever found
their way into your everyday talk,
then you are aware of the important
influence that all creatures seem to
have on our language
An eager, aggres-
sive person may be
described as a tiger.
Or, if he should
exhibit extreme ener-
gy, he has a tiger in
his tank! If someone
just seems unusually
restless, he may be
Sy Manello
said to have ants in
Editorial Assistant
his pants.
An awkward situ-
ation or the mention
of a sensitive subject may lead one
to observe that there is an elephant
in the room. Coming upon such a
situation, you may sense something

fishy. Being intimidated enough to
stop talking, you may be said to have
chickened out.
How do you know the information
you are sharing about someone? Well,
a little bird may have told you; it
could be a case of monkey see, mon-
key do. If, however, you perpetuate a
falsehood, you are just a silly goose.
During the dog days of summer,
those who do not stay properly hydrat-
ed may drop like flies. Even after
being cautioned, those who refuse to
listen are being bull headed.

Anyone who cannot come up with
an original idea may be described as a
copy cat. Such a one may lay claim to
the lion’s share based on his lack of
honesty, but his colleagues may smell
a rat, hold a kangaroo court and
throw him to the wolves.
Hold your horses! Before you go on
to claim I have overdone it this time
(before you have a cow) you may
acknowledge that, as you quote me,
it comes straight from the horse’s
mouth and I’m not “lion.” •

Ronald Lauder, World Jewish
Congress President

The World Jewish Congress
(WJC), an international orga-
nization representing more
than 100 diverse Jewish com-
munities on six continents, has
launched its second annual
#WeRemember initiative to
combat anti-Semitism and all
forms of hatred, genocide and
xenophobia.
As part of the campaign, the
WJC is reaching out to millions
of people across the globe to
photograph themselves hold-
ing a #WeRemember sign, and
post the image to social media
to help spread the message as
widely as possible.
More than 250 million people
were reached in the 2017
campaign, with participants
including heads of state, celeb-
rities and average people from
around the world. This year, the
WJC hopes to reach 500 million
people.
The campaign will run
through International
Holocaust Remembrance Day
at the end of January, culminat-
ing with a live projection of all
participant photos, interviews
with Holocaust survivors, and
messages from influencers from
varied backgrounds, profes-
sions, ages and religions on the
grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau
from Jan. 24-27. •

commentary

Th e Jerusalem We Know

A

s a group of young Palestinian
and Israeli activists from
Jerusalem, we, Riman Barakat,
Racheli Ibenboim and I, Michal Shilor,
have found it slightly gut-wrenching
to see our beloved city receive so
much international attention. Never
in our lives have we
seen so much writ-
ten about this place
by people who know
so little about it.
We were born and
raised here, learned
here, loved here and
are now building
Michal Shilor
families here. We’ve
lived through wars,
uprisings and peace
treaties that led to
where we are today.
Through it all, we’ve grown used to
international journalists parachuting
in and choosing to focus their lens
on the extremists, the bloodshed and
the hatred while they ignore the daily
harmony and natural coexistence that

takes little searching
in order to see. We’ve
grown accustomed,
in turn, to the shock
of foreigners when
they finally visit our
city and see that it
has no resemblance
to the war zone they
see on TV or read
about in the paper.
Jerusalem City Center
Even the closest
observers of this
conflict are stunned to hear that in
this city of 860,000, there have been a
total of 27 violent fatalities this year.
That accounts for political violence
and apolitical homicides. Last year’s
homicide figures for Columbus, Ohio,
a city the same size, were four times
that.
Never has this crack between por-
trayal and reality felt wider than it
does now. Reading the headlines,
one would imagine that tensions in
the air here could suffocate a person,
that there never could be peaceful

interactions between the Israelis and
Palestinians who live in this holy
city. Following President Trump’s
Jerusalem announcement, there were
warnings of explosive consequences.
An endless chorus of experts and
world leaders predicted unprecedent-
ed bloodshed.
Yet despite those dire warnings, and
calls for violence on one side and cel-
ebrations on the other, Jerusalemites
have remained loyal to themselves.
At Friday prayers following Trump’s
declarations, journalists swarmed the

continued on page 6

jn

January 18 • 2018

5