CitiBank accused of supporting Palestinian terror

Other items in today’s column include:
*Political bytes
*Tower collapse in Haifa
*Recommended reading
*In memoriam

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — CitiBank, which has branches throughout San Diego County, has been threatened with a law suit by Shurat HaDin, a Jewish lawfare organization, over ties with “the Bank of Palestine and affiliated institutions involved in “pay for slay’ payments.

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the executive director of Shurat HaDin, writes to CitiBank that “imprisoned Palestinian terrorists or their families receive monthly salaries and stipends” from the PA relating to suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, “which are transferred though the Bank of Palestine and the Palestinian Banking system.

“The PA incentivizes killing Jews and Israelis by regularly providing such financial rewards to all imprisoned Palestinian terrorists, including those from Hamas, which has been a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization in the United States since 1997.”

Shurat HaDin warned CitiBank that it may be liable to both civil and criminal liability under the US Anti Terrorism Act.

Asked for reaction, Bob Runyan of Citi’s media department issued a statement declining to comment.

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Political bytes

Congressional candidate Sara Jacobs, seeking to succeed retiring Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) held a panel discussion on Facebook on how calls for racial justice can move from protests to effective action. Her panelists were Aerimique Glass Blake, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Generation Justice, and Maresa Talbert, co-chair for San Diegans for Justice.

Much of the discussion called for political support for a proposed initiative possibly to appear on the City of San Diego’s November ballot, which would create an independent Commission on Police Practices that would have the power to investigate allegations of police wrongdoing, and to have subpoena power to call witnesses and request documents. Currently said Talbert, who also is a top executive in Jacobs’ campaign, the Community Review Board “has no teeth;” it receives legal advice from the City Attorney’s office, which also represents the police, and reports to the mayor’s office, which also in the boss of the police department. That, she said,is a conflict of interest.

The San Diego City Council will vote June 23 whether to put the proposal on the ballot–and the expectation is that it will be approved, according to Jacobs, whose opponent in the congressional race is Georgette Gomez, president of the San Diego City Council.

In the meantime, Jacobs said, people in support of the measure should sign up with sandiegansforjustice.com, and add their voice to 80 community organizations who have called for the measure to go on the ballot. If listeners hadn’t already registered to vote, they should do so immediately, she added.

Blake called for support of the National Conflict Resolution Center as well as for restorative justice programs in which people who cause harm can meet with the people they caused harmed to, and work out an out-of-court settlement so that the wrongdoer is not pipelined to jails and prisons. “As soon as they go into these places, there is a higher chance for them to reoffend,” Blake said. She added that young people should “have the ability to make their wrong right.”

In the November election, there will be, in addition to Jacobs’ own race for Congress, elections for mayor of San Diego (Assemblyman Todd Gloria vs. City Councilwoman Barbara Bry) and for city attorney (incumbent Mara Elliott vs. challenger Cory Briggs). Jacobs recommended becoming familiar with the positions of all the candidates on how police should be supervised. In 2022, she noted both the sheriff and the district attorney offices will be coming up for election, and supporters of reform should begin recruiting women candidates now.

At the federal level, she said, she supports a ban on the transfer of such military weapons as tanks and grenade launchers to local police departments. “We don’t need weapons of war,” she said.

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Tower collapse in Haifa
Omer Zalmanowitz, who normally covers popular music for us, sent along this intelligence about the destruction of a landmark in Haifa, Israel:  “If you have been to Haifa then you know of the coastal skyline of Haifa as being dominated by two behemoths of concrete, in essence two cooling containers that funnel steam, helping stabilize the hot mess of power generation. (A Hebrew language video of the collapse may be seen above.) Haifa has long been battling air quality issues, and the two towers, known affectionately as Lebeniyas, are symbols of the city’s industrial scale pollution. Never mind that the Lebeniyas have been inactive since 2007, the two towers symbolize the sorry state of affairs that is Haifa’s air quality. Today one of the cooling towers collapsed, leaving Haifa’s residents in shock, as the Lebeniyas became synonymous with Haifa’s landmarks, and aerial topography. The collapse of the tower’s caldera occurred where the structure was at its thinnest, and most exposed, leaving the broad base intact. The collapse started three days ago, with a small concrete chuck dislodging from the caldera, and today the top of the structure caved in on itself, going down in a heap of rubble and smoke. There are now one and one half Lebeniyas, and today Haifa’s skyline is missing one of its two most iconic pinnacles.  A Lebeniya does not denote a brick, or a Levena in Hebrew, instead the nickname given to the structures stems from the shape of containers used for the storing of Labaneh, a type of yogurt. For some, the skyline is now amiss, while for others the partial collapse of one Lebeniya into a one half Lebeniya is a symbol that the systemic pollution of the port city is now to be brought down, and that decades of chemical pollutants streaming into open, degrading air quality, and producing ill effects to the environment and to health can now be reversed. As a national debate rages, the collapse of the top of the Lebeniya takes on a form of its own importance in the lives of those who notice its glaring absence.”

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Recommended reading
The New York Jewish Week reviews Concealed: Memoir of a Jewish-Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America by Esther Amini. Outwardly living as Muslims in Iran, they inwardly practiced their Judaism. When they arrived in the United States, her father demanded they keep to their old ways.

Chris Jennewein, editor of Times of San Diego, says he grew up in the South and writes that President Trump’s effort to preserve Confederate history is morally bankrupt.

GlobalJews.org published quotations from Black Jews about the current protests over the killing of George Floyd and their feelings about being part of two groups.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that the sheriff’s office has decided not to bring charges against the couple who donned swastika masks at a Food4Less outlet in Santee on the grounds that their action is protected by the free speech amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

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In Memoriam
*David Peikes, brother of Torah High School Dean Rabbi Michoel Peikes, died in Norwich, Connecticut, and will be buried at a private ceremony there on Monday, June 15. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Rabbi Peikes will remain in San Diego, where he has already begun sitting shiva, Beth Jacob Congregation announced. Here is the zoom link for shiva times.

*Carol Ann (Solomon) Stein, 76, died Thursday, June 11, Am Israel Mortuary reported. Funeral services will be conducted by Rabbi David Kornberg of Congregation Beth Am at 10 a.m., Sunday, June 14 at El Camino Memorial Park, 5600 Carroll Canyon Road, San Diego.

*As a point of personal privilege, I should like to remember on this date the birthday of my late mother, Alice Harrison Walters, who died in San Diego in 1987.  Had she lived to today, she would have been 108 years old.  A longtime survivor of breast cancer, who had a mastectomy, she used to counsel women at University Hospital who had the same procedure, showing them how to wear a breast prosthetic and providing emotional support.  Mother was also very active in Congregation Beth Israel’s project to resettle Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union.

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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com Free obituaries in memory of members of the San Diego County Jewish community are sponsored on San Diego Jewish World by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg.