By Debbie Schlussel

Tonight at sundown, Chanukah, “the Jewish Festival of Lights,” begins (more about that later).  Make sure that gifts you’ve bought and continue to buy aren’t financing the modern-day enemies of the Maccabees.  I found out the hard way that sometimes Jewish-themed gifts sold by Jewish Israelis are actually financing the enemy.  That’s the case with Eastory, a company with which I refuse to do any future business.

Some weeks ago, you may have seen a rotating ad for Eastory, an online, Israel-based Judaica store.  I removed the ad, at some cost to me, as it was part of our ad network.  And I rejected an opportunity to get even more money from Eastory through an ad campaign specifically designed for this site.  (A test done on several sites showed that this site had the best response to Eastory’s ad, in terms of click-throughs.)

The reason I stopped running Eastory’s ad and rejected the company, at considerable cost to myself, is that I learned that Eastory–a Jewish Israeli-owned business–donates 2% of its profits to far-left Israeli causes that send Palestinian Muslim to an MIT-taught enterpreneurship course and train Palestinian Muslims in hijabs how to increase their digital literacy and online presence.

Yes, these charities do the same for an equal number of Israeli Jewish kids.  But that’s the thing.  These Israeli, far-left charities believe in the dangerous moral equivalency meme.  They treat the targets of Palestinian Islamic violence and morally equivalent to the future perpetrators and their supporters (who will now have enhanced online skills to foment jihad).  Oh, and some of them will have gone to MIT, so I suppose that will make their future homicide bombs more “scientifically perfected.”  There are Jews from Gush Katif, who lost their homes and jobs when Israel handed Gaza to the Palestinians.  Many of them are still unemployed and homeless.  They would love to have the kind of training and business courses the Palestinians are getting from these charities, which get profits from unknowing Judaica buyers at Eastory.

Below is an e-mail exchange I had with Eleanor Nissensohn, the owner of Eastory.  As you can see, I offered to continue doing ads with her, if she would give 2% of all profits on sales from visitors referred by this site to Job Katif, a terrific organization that gives job training and entrepreneurial courses to the exiled Gush Katif residents.  She refused.

It has come to my attention that you at Eastory.com give 2% of your profits selling Judaica to charities that are very left-wing, help Palestinian and Arab Muslims, and morally equivocate Jews & Israelis to Muslims and Palestinians. These are things I write against regularly on my site and I cannot support any money going to these charities. Especially now when Jews and Israelis are under siege from Muslims–Muslims and especially Palestinians that get a great deal of tax money from Americans and other Westerners–I find it incomprehensible that any Jew–especially Jews selling Judaica–would give to charities like this that further enable the enemies of the Jewish people. Therefore, I cannot have Eastory ads on my site, unless an arrangement can be made to give 2% of all profits from sales from my site to a pro-Israel charity which actually helps Jews, like Job Katif. We are soon upon the Chanukah season, and I would suggest that you give charity moneys to those who emulate the Maccabees and fight for the Jewish people, not those who enable and elevate their enemies.

Debbie Schlussel
DebbieSchlussel.com

***

From: Elinor Nissensohn Elinor@eastory.com
Date: Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 2:29 AM
Subject: RE: eastory + cair website
To: Debbie Schlussel writedebbie@gmail.com

Hi,

I guess our views are really too different for us to work together.

I will not get into a political argument but frankly after all the Jewish people were always put into one category as Jews and were hated for that how can we do the same to another nation.

We are the world, we are the children, yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah. In 1941, she’d be saying this same baloney to my grandparents in the rail cars on the way to Germany, like the Communist Jews did. What Ms. Nissensohn doesn’t seem to get is that we are still hated . . . by THEM (the Palestinian Muslims she’s enabling through these charities). Not wanting to fund them isn’t “putting anyone in a category” or “hating them” or “doing” anything “to another nation.” It’s getting real. And facing facts. Sending them to business courses and teaching them how to better put out their jihadist message on the Net won’t change that.

As I noted in the e-mail exchange, I think it’s outrageous that American taxpayers–and those all over the world–are already forced into funding the entire HAMASastan and FATAHstan welfare states.  But that a Jewish site advertising for Chanukah wants to enable HAMAS and Fatah’s supporters from within Israel and uses sales of Chanukah items to do it, is an absolute abomination.  This is, after all, the holiday which marks the Jewish Maccabees courageously fighting and defeating the Greeks who tried to wipe them and their religion out in favor of a Hellenistic police state.

As I’ve noted before on my site, the Chanukah holiday story is often sanitized for kids, as much of the games (like dreidel) and traditions (like eating fried jelly donuts and potato pancakes/latkes and giving Chanukah gelt/money, which has now become gifts) appeal to children.  But, in fact, the Maccabees story was not short and quick.  The Maccabees fought for years, and it was bloody.  And the most bloodshed was reserved for the Jews who became Hellenists.  There were many of them, and the Maccabees slew a lot of ’em.

Today, the Hellenists would be defined as Jews like Eleanor of Eastory.  That she gives 2%–or even a single shekel–to causes that send Palestinian Muslims to MIT and computer school is absolutely contrary to the Chanukah story.  It is aiding and abetting the enemy.

Israel–in addition to U.S. and European taxpayers–finances a good deal of Palestinian Arabs’ welfare.  It gives them a ton of services, more and better than they’d ever get anywhere in the Islamic world.  They don’t need your Chanukah or other Judaica purchase going to them as well.

I’m all for giving a portion of the profits from Judaica sales to worthy Israeli causes, but not ones which help the Hellenist-types of the Chanukah story.  There are so many worthy Israeli causes, and, for example, MadeInIsrael.com gives 100% of its online profits to them.  Those charities give to Israeli Jews in need, not future sympathizers, enablers, and even participants in Palestinian Islamic terrorism.

When you buy something from a Judaica website or any other kind of website, check to see if they note any “charitable” giving and look into what those charities are, where the charities spend their money, and on whom. (And, as I noted, this site does well for Judaica advertisers in independent tests.  So, if you sell Judaica or know someone who does and is interested in advertising on this site, please e-mail me.)

Remember the Maccabees . . . and don’t spend your money financing their enemies.