Threats against the Settenbrino family
Threats against the Settenbrino familyCourtesy

Since October 7th, 2023, many bizarre, threatening experiences have plagued Jews with impunity. Our overall safety is at risk. Skyrocketing Anti-Semitism, riots, and campus embattlements are plaguing us throughout the formerly civilized West. It has been a bit surreal watching contagious campus protests, riots in Paris, London, Berlin, Montreal, the pogrom in Amsterdam, a Chabad Emissary murdered in Dubai and a Jew killed in Chicago to shouts of Allahu Akbar. Let us hope Trump will make a difference.

Violent assertions of revisionist history and delusional goals of Hamas supporters chanting “from the river to the sea,” as though the world will be a better place in a Middle East bereft of Israel, which has been a haven for minorities and a hub for medical and technological advancement - in addition, of course, to being the Jewish People's historic homeland and only state.

This one and only Jewish State is located in a bad neighborhood, where weapons slip through Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese and Egyptian borders for proxy terrorists who serve as murdeous pawns in the war of attrition against the infidel State.

Since its inception, Israel has been treading water in a sea of Islamists, despots and dictatorships that rule with tyranny, abuse women and children, and oppress minorities and yet are represented in the UN with credibility, almost never criticized, and often rewarded and praised. UN offers grand prizes for Deception and Illusion. The Deception award is dedicated to the false narrative that the formerly Jordanian- and Egyptian-ruled territories of the Shomron and Yehudah and Gaza belong to a unique indigenous 'people' that is not Jewish. The Illusion award is predicated on the delusion declarations, mandates, and military defeats have zero value.

Millions of peoples in the near East and Europe were repatriated, whereas a certain branch of multiethnic Arabs formed the great Islamist hope-by rebranding to “Palestinian” as a means to provide a victory to Arab nationalists they could not achieve by war. The UN unofficially made these Palestinian Arabs an economic ward, procuring funds to support and inculcate Muslim Brotherhood ideology, thus forming muti-generational nihilists, grooming pay-for-slay hitmen, and the building of wonderous labyrinthine tunnels to abduct, rape, mutilate and kill Jews.

These cultural abnormalities - and that is the best description of them - keep daily life in Israel on high alert and call upon the government to provide readiness to confront military action and terrorism.

Scapegoating Jews Strengthens Ties

In the 1960s Israel, a lone democratic state in the Middle East, challenged Soviet alliances in the region. The Middle East was a choice arena for Soviet hegemony, and as a means to strengthen ties with the anti-western Arab nationalists under their sphere of influence, the Soviets contrived a “Zionism is racism” platform. In 1964 the PLO Charter was formulated in Russia. Soviets promoted the founding, funding and training for PLO Liberation terrorists.

A Pragmatic Blood Libel

Historically, Russia segregated Jews to monitor their activities and enforce discriminatory laws which suffocated them with a thousand edicts. Tsarist Russia conscripted preadolescent Jewish boys for a 31-year military service in order to coerce conversions and culled Jewish villages by conspiratorial blood libels and murderous pogroms.

In 1903 the Protocols of the Elders of Zion appeared as a serial in a leading Russian newspaper, owned by Pavel Krushevan, a rabid anti-Semite. He contrived to produce a work that would do untold harm to Jews.

1924 Benjamin Segel, a German Journalist

“This forgery has caused untold misery to the Jews, and still exercises an incredible spell on the minds of the seduced masses.”

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a primer on world Jewish domination was created for home use as well as export, in the hope to incite deathly Jew hatred all around the world. The Soviet Union, following in the footsteps of Mother Russia, was inspired by the notorious long-standing and far-reaching effects of the notorious Protocols, to introduce a 20th century version – “Zionism is racism.”

How To Kill Two Birds With One Stone

The Soviets updated the long dark trail of discrimination against Jews as individuals and employed it against their collective identity as a modern blood libel. The slogan served as a rallying cry ostracizing Refuseniks who wanted to emigrate and created a forum in the UN to shun Israel as a pariah state.

Jew Hatred the Great Equalizer

Anti-Zionism found common ground amongst Arabs, Communist and the West. Desire for Arab oil, business, and expunging the sins of Western imperialism via Jews proved irresistible. A hyper charged UN passed the most damning resolution against the lone Jewish State.

Zionism is Racism

The east and west alike joined to condemn Zionism as a “racist and an imperialist ideology” and “a threat to world peace.” On November 10th, 1975, UN resolution “Zionism is Racism” was adopted by the General Assembly.

A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-Semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty— and more— to the murderers of the six million European Jews. - Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Jew, Zhid, Juif, Judío, Jude and Yahud

Sixteen years later in 1991, Zionism is Racism was rescinded. It served as totalitarian propaganda: direct public discourse to discredit, malign, demoralize and spread the word so far and so fast as to render any retraction impotent, when compared with the venomous sting of public degradation.

Zionism, the indelible union of the Land and People of Israel, morphed into a byword equivalent to the international vulgar and common vernacular usage of Jew in decibel, nuance, and tonal variations so familiar in all host countries: Jew, Zhid, Juif, Judío, Jude, and Yahud is now most frequently heard throughout the EU.

No history, no Jews, no Israel

In 2020 the UN’s impaired vision contrived a hallucinogenic prescription to reinvision Jerusalem’s Temple Mount as an Islamic holy site. In one fell swoop Jewish history was deleted by a 138-member approved resolution referring to the Temple Mount as an Islamic Holy site.

The UN’s financing, and protekzia exhortations for cease fires in 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2021 all served to secure Hamas’ rule by running interference for murderous recalcitrant Islamists. UN assistance allowed Hamas the ease with which they applied their satanic efforts to inflict the fires of hell on their own people, using hospitals, schools, Mosques, as launching pads and civilian homes as weapons depots. The wellbeing of their citizens was irrelevant. The sole interest was to sustain their deadly ambitions to torment Israel into submission by spreading purgatory across the border.

UN members who defend the indefensible bear responsibility for the deaths and hostages of October 7th, 2023, the deadliest day for Jews since the holocaust. Although clear to Jews, Christian Zionists, and decent people that Israel cannot continue living next door to a border manned by Hamas psycho killers, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres invoked article 99, a dramatic move to force a ceasefire for ghouls who decapitate, burn babies alive, rape women in front of their children and rape children in front of their parents, and practice live and postmortem sexual mutilations.

Let us hope that Trump's current hostage exchange-ceasefire does not leave evil intact.

Not good for America, Israel, or World Jewry

European appeasement has left the continent in a state of disquietude; most dare not acknowledge that without forthright intervention the final frontier on the Islamist conquest and colonization of Western Europe is imminent. The UN’s corrosive atmospherics has not played well for Israel and cries of Gaza genocide fuel the latent Jew hatred laying dormant since the Holocaust beneath the blood-stained continent of Europe. Classic Jew hatred with a Zionist twist is in vogue; major cities around the world are congested with throngs of home-grown migrant Islamists and their subversive and elite supporters.

The Jew on the Street

According to a recent survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, a staggering 96% of Jewish respondents reported experiencing antisemitism in the year before the survey, indicating an extremely high prevalence of antisemitic incidents across the EU. Identifiable Jews are targeted, in the US there has been a 361% increase in reported antisemitic incidents and every Jew I know is aware of many unreported as well.

Our Family Business is Under Siege

Since July 21st, our daily life has felt as if we are in the initial stages of a burgeoning anti-Semitic regime, where Jews are pursued with impunity. This is a common theme in the historical collective consciousness of our people.

So here we are, a Jewish family business in NYC, dedicated to the community and the poster child for art and preservation up against a new generation of haters.

“This hotel belongs to a Jewish terror family and needs to be closed in one way or another. No mercy!!! 💣”

The Historic Blue Moon Hotel, at 100 Orchard Street, New York City, is a neighborhood icon, a five year art preservation and design project. Chosen as “One of 150 in the Western Hemisphere” by National Geographic, with a kosher restaurant and a Jewish oriented art gallery, the hotel is a hub for Jewish art and culture and targeted due to our two sons, IDF soldiers, our beloved Chayalim, the high-profile nature of the hotel, as well as for my activities as a speaker, artist, writer and activist.

Since July 21, 2024, my family members, hotel staff and prospective guests have been harassed in an effort to try to destroy our family business.

Venomous attacks have been made via email, incessant calls to our home, cell phones, calls at 3:00 and 4:00 AM, graphic pictures of weapons accompanying threatening phone calls and emails, menacing, and scathing comments on social media, bad reviews, bombarding our inbox with Jew hatred. Protests, boycotts, and death threats have been made by Islamist supporters with projections and insinuations of infanticide pouring in from all over the globe.

As of November 21st, the FBI has apprehended one of the death stalkers, Donovan Hall.

FBI "Wherefore, I respectfully request that a warrant be issued for the arrest of DONOVAN HALL, the defendant and that he be arrested, imprisoned or bailed, as the case may Charges were as follows: Count one, on or about September 4, 2024, was for threatening interstate communications. Count two, on or about October 15, 2024, was for threatening interstate communications and count three, on or about August 2024 through on or about November 2024, was for cyberstalking.” “ August 2024, HALL began threatening phone calls---many anti-Semitic in nature.”

“October 2024, HALL escalated his threatening conduct by sending photographs of deadly weapons to Victim-1, along with threats to use those weapons to harm Victim-1 and his family."

“Between August 8, 2024, and November 20, 2024, HALL, using the HALL phone, contacted the Hotel, its owners, its employees at least 971 times and made numerous threatening, intimidating and antisemitic statements during those communications." I would say more accurately they numbered 1500 + these calls were too short in duration or lacked a clear message.

Although the concern remains that Hall still has to be arraigned and could be out on bail, this little bit of justice is not panacea but we are prayerful as a first page in making our daily lives whole again.

Threat from Hamas supporter
Threat from Hamas supporterCourtesy

Fresh Wounds Demand Attention

Jews are on notice. A call is on for all Jews to find common ground to stand for justice without pandering or groveling, to demand safety for American Jewry. We are required to make every effort to keep our people safe in Israel and the world over.

Dead and wounded soldiers, languishing hostages, widows, orphans, and Jews pursued throughout Europe and North America, serve to show we cannot be divided as the waves of hatred are hurled against us.

Randy/Yisroel Settenbrinois the artist and developer of the Historic Blue Moon Hotel, The Sweet dreams Café and the Last Jewish Tenement Tours, His project was chosen by National Geographic as one of 150 in the Western Hemisphere. He writes on art, psychology, theology, and practical philosophy. He and his wife are also the proud parents of two IDF soldiers serving in Handasah Kravit.