Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.

That went about as well as expected. Especially when BDS was involved. BDS rhetoric makes Nazi rhetoric look sensible and reasonable because it taps into whatever dementia is in the air.

At a BDS event in Portland, a professor from a Seattle university told the assembled crowd that the Jews of Israel have no national rights and should be forced out of the country. When I asked, “Where do you want them to go?” she calmly answered, “I don’t care. I don’t care if they don’t have any place else to go. They should not be there.”

When I responded that she was calling for ethnic cleansing, both she and her supporters denied it.

And during a presentation in Seattle, I spoke about my longing for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. When I was done, a woman in her 60’s stood up and yelled at me, “You are worse than the Nazis. You are just like the Nazi youth!”

A number of times I was repeatedly accused of being a killer, though I have never hurt anyone in my life.

On other occasions, anti-Israel activists called me a rapist. The claims go beyond being absurd – in one case, a professor asked me if I knew how many Palestinians have been raped by IDF forces. I answered that as far as I knew, none.

She triumphantly responded that I was right, because, she said, “You IDF soldiers don’t rape Palestinians because Israelis are so racist and disgusted by them that you won’t touch them.”

This inspiring poem was etched into a wall by a prisoner of Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

A Chanukah candle lighting ceremony in Westerbork transit camp, Netherlands, 1943.

Reading for pleasure is losing its appeal in the technological age. Paperbacks don’t share in the immediacy of Netflix, Snapchat or YouTube, and can’t compete with our shortened attention spans.

But while some are mourning the demise of the reading culture, a few Israeli creatives are choosing to fight this trend and are bringing literature to the smartphone generation through a new mobile app called Books on Map.

It’s part library, part treasure map, part social network. The app opens up to a typical GPS-locating digital map. Users from all over the world can submit “Bookations,” where they mark the locations in their city that make an appearance in their favorite novel, using certain quotes. They can also create entire routes designed to follow specific stories

Reading for pleasure is losing its appeal in the technological age. Paperbacks don’t share in the immediacy of Netflix, Snapchat or YouTube, and can’t compete with our shortened attention spans.

But while some are mourning the demise of the reading culture, a few Israeli creatives are choosing to fight this trend and are bringing literature to the smartphone generation through a new mobile app called Books on Map.

It’s part library, part treasure map, part social network. The app opens up to a typical GPS-locating digital map. Users from all over the world can submit “Bookations,” where they mark the locations in their city that make an appearance in their favorite novel, using certain quotes. They can also create entire routes designed to follow specific stories

Meet Israeli all-star Hannah Sensesh.

Hannah Senesh became a Zionist as a young girl, and moved from her home in Hungary to Israel in 1939 where she joined the Haganah. In 1943, became a paratrooper for the British army. The following year, Hannah was sent on a secret mission to rescue Jews from Hungary. Arrested at the border, she was repeatedly tortured for several months, but refused to reveal any information about her mission. 

When the Nazis executed her on November 7, 1944, Hannah was only 23-years-old. Throughout her short but heroic life, Hannah kept a diary and wrote poetry which is widely acclaimed today. Senesh is a national heroine in Israel for her courage, poetry, and devotion to her country.