Bruce Ticker

Bruce S. Ticker

Bruce Ticker is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Alexander Vindman unfairly treated, like Dreyfus

He is a Jewish military officer, from a disputed foreign territory, wrongly accused, publicly disgraced, banished across an open body of water, and abandoned to an isolated location. No, not Alfred Dreyfus, the French officer who was falsely convicted of colluding with Germany and then whose badges, stripes, cuffs and sleeves of his jacket were torn off on Jan. 5, 1895, at the Military School in Paris, and sent across the Atlantic Ocean to a prison on Devil’s Island in French Guiana for five years. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was removed from the National Security Council by President Trump on Friday after he testified before the Intelligence Committee of the House of Representatives of the chief executive’s attempted collusion with the president of Ukraine. Vindman’s testimony contributed to Trump’s impeachment in the House followed by his acquittal in the Senate. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, International, Jewish History, USA

Gun laws, not more prosecution of slapper, needed

Last week Attorney General William Barr traveled to Boro Park in Brooklyn and vowed to bring down the full weight of the federal government upon anti-Semitic violence. Who did he target? She who slaps Jews or those who gun us down? Our esteemed attorney general went after what must be the most dangerous of these forces. He announced federal hate-crime charges against…drum roll, please…Tiffany Harris. [Bruce Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Jewish History, USA

There are tools for fighting the anti-Semites

Fast-forward to this past September when Nicholas Bogan, 17, sent his store manager a message that he was “celebrating the Jewish holiday tomorrow night.” In Eatontown, N.J., 75 years after the Holocaust, Francesco Scotto Di Rinaldi responded: “F-k the Jewish. Put them on fire/like Hitler was trying to do/He had a point,” according to The New York Post. Predictably, Bogan never returned to his part-time job as a pizza delivery driver, and two months later he filed a lawsuit against the owners of the restaurant, Maurizio’s Pizzeria & Italian Ristorante, a short drive from Asbury Park. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Jewish History, USA

Why I won’t vote for Biden, Sanders or Warren

– Two policy positions should disqualify any candidate for president – casting a vote to invade Iraq or distorting Israel’s role in its struggle with the Palestinians. That would eliminate former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, the three consistent front-runners for the Democratic nomination. In October 2002, then-Senator Biden joined 76 other senators in voting to send troops to invade Iraq, and Sanders and Warren cannot pontificate on the Middle East for long without placing a disproportionate amount of blame on Israel. {Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Middle East, USA

Insanity defense for anti-Semites is itself insane

From the outset, Grafton Thomas’s mother and attorney harped on his 20-year history of mental illness. They said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia long ago and ceased taking his anti-psychotic medication two months before he allegedly drove to a Chanukah party at a rabbi’s house in Monsey, N.Y., on Dec. 28, and wounded five or more Orthodox Jews with a machete. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, USA

Pennsylvania vote could decide presidential election

These elections follow those in 2018 when Pennsylvanians re-elected Gov. Tom Wolf and Sen. Robert P. Casey, both Democrats, while Democratic governors were elected in the other states, Wisconsin and Michigan. … No doubt the Jewish vote contributed to Democratic gains in Philadelphia’s suburbs. The Jewish presence in Montgomery County has long been substantial and in recent years expanded northwards. Delaware County has had a smaller but steady Jewish population. In recent decades, the Jewish population has grown in Chester County and skyrocketed in Bucks County. [Bruce S. Ticker}

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Bruce Ticker, USA

Arab countries should pay for humanitarian relief in Gaza

The senator’s scheme to relieve their pain collapses when he proposes that funds for humanitarian aid there be diverted from the $3.8 million that America sends to Israel each year for military aid. Why Israel? Why not all the oil-rich Arab countries that spend their money on royal palaces and extravagant vacations? They launched the war of 1948 that sent Palestinians fleeing Israel in all directions or living mainly in Gaza and the West Bank. What is their responsibility? [Bruce Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Middle East, USA

Elizabeth Warren antagonizes Jewish voters

Warren sounded as if she was threatening Israel to withhold aid if it refused to halt settlement construction if she is elected president. Pointing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s campaign pledges, Warren inflamed an already volatile issue with these words: “Right now, Netanyahu says he is going to take Israel in a direction of increasing settlements…It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table.” She added with the effect of emphasis: “Everything is on the table.” [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Bruce Ticker, Middle East, USA

Jewish Year 5780 starts with bad news

Two days before the Day of Atonement, The New York Times reported that Jeremy Corbyn had advanced a signficant step toward becoming Britain’s prime minister. Yom Kippur itself was consumed by fatal shootings outside a synagogue in Germany; a military earthquake in Syria that could easily extend to Israel; and two scary incidents in Elon, North Carolina, and White Plains, New York. This confluence of events cast a bleak shadow for 5780, the new Jewish year. It makes one wonder what else can happen.

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Bruce Ticker, International, Middle East, USA