Security expert: Jewish institutions in USA must protect themselves

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

The phone calls are coming. They were predictable.

“The phone always rings when something like this happens. Then interests wanes.”

That’s Gary Moskowitz. A rabbi. And former New York City cop.

He consults with religious institutions on security these days. Sometimes business is slow. Sometimes, brisk.

Right now it’s busy. Because of the shootings outside a Jewish school in France that killed four.

Moskowitz is critical of the Jewish community’s “knee jerk reaction.”

Most Jewish institutions, he says, only have minimal security.

“The Jewish community is in denial; deep denial,” Moskowitz says.

“They don’t want to do the bare minimum to protect themselves.”

For example, most synagogues have an unlocked open door policy. “The only time you see a guard is on Rosh Hashana to make sure no one without a ticket comes in,” he says.

Congregations should be trained says Moskowitz, who heads the U.S. Jewish Security Council, in how to conduct a lock down. And proper evacuation techniques.

And how to protect themselves against an attack until the police arrive.

People are listening to Moskowitz now. They are even seeking him out. Because the attack in France has them on edge. But will they after it’s no longer front page news?

Moskowitz says, if recent history is any judge, unfortunately, they will not.

Contact Gary Moskowitz at gavriael@aol.com.

Farrakhan blames the Jews for slavery

In January of 2011 Charles Jacobs travelled to South Sudan to document slavery and deliver humanitarian aid

By GARY BAUMGARTEN

Nation of Islam boss Louis Farrakhan told an audience at Berkeley that black students should not befriend Jews before reading his book. A book that makes the case that Jews were behind slavery in the United States.

This from the same man who denies modern day slavery in Sudan where, as in Mauritania, the UN has document its rampant practice.

His allegations infuriates Charles Jacobs, who received the Boston Freedom Award for his efforts in freeing slaves in Sudan. Slaves that, Jacobs notes, are being held in captivity by Muslims.

Farrakhan has been silent on the issue of slavery for sometime. He was muzzled after challenging reporters in Washington D.C. to go to Sudan for themselves and learn the truth about what he argued was the erroneous claim that slavery exists there.

The Baltimore Sun took him up on the challenge. Not only discovering slavery, but emancipating some of the slaves their reporters encountered.

But Farrakhan is being silent no more. His book, Jacobs acknowledges, makes a pervasive – but unfair – argument that Jews were responsible for slavery in the United States.

“There were Jewish slave owners,” Jacobs acknowledges. “But they were a minority of slave owners at a time.

What Farrakhan does in his book is document and magnify the few Jewish slave owners.

“If you read the book,” Jacobs says, “you hate Jews,” because it makes it seem like Jews led the South in enslaving blacks.

Jacobs believes Farrakahan’s job in life is to “break apart the black  Jewish civil rights alliance” while recruiting blacks to Islam. But he has a problem, Jacobs says. Because in Sudan, black people are being held as slaves by their Muslim masters.

Jacobs also believes that Farrakhan finds it infuriating that the modern anti-slave movement is led by Jews. So enter the book.

He gets away with it, Jacobs argues, because few are talking about the Muslim slave owners in Sudan because it’s politically incorrect. “The human rights movement,” he argues, “has actually abandoned the slaves of Islam.”

Read more about Charles Jacobs and his work at http://www.iabolish.org/.

A Spring-like day in Bryant Park

It was 57 degrees in New York City's Bryant Park when I took this photo today.

It went up to 68.

On March 8th!

Lonely fisherman

Union Beach, New Jersey

Hoboken pub crawl

The St. Patrick's Day parade canceled because of unruly (and that's putting it nicely) behavior last year, a pub crawl instead this year.

Numerous arrests, again. Cops had a no tolerance policy toward public drinking, urination, etc. The fine: $2,000.

I came across one young lady, crying and abandoned by her friends. No money. No cellphone. No ID.

I let her use my phone to call for help - but who abandons one's friend like that? And leaves her with no means to even call or take a train back home?

Another couple literally walked into a wrought iron fence. I was on the phone when it happened with a friend who asked me if they were alright. I answered, "if they're not, they don't know it!"

Pre-dawn Times Square

Taken with my iPhone this morning. 

Here come the Breitbart conspiracy theories

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Last night as we were preparing the evening newscasts at Fox News Radio, one of the anchors wondered out loud how long it would be before the conspiracy theorists started sounding off about the death of conservative blogger and publisher Andrew Breitbart who had died earlier that day.

Not long, as it turns out.

A conservative politico from New Hampshire sent me a message about 30 minutes later. Saying she was already hearing theories being presented that Breitbart was "taken out" because he was about to "spill the goods" on President Obama.

And right wing radio talk show host Michael Savage wasted no time taking to the airwaves suggesting much the same.

The LA County Medical Examiner's Office says Breitbart died of natural causes. Family members say he had a history of heart problems.

Goodbye CNNRadio, old friend

It is the end of an era.

An era which brought me to New York. To network radio. To where I am and, in some ways, who I am today.

On April 1, 2012, CNNRadio, where I worked as New York correspondent for a decade, will cease to exist as it once was. No longer will it be a full service network. Instead, it will become a podcast service.

The correspondents, thankfully, will remain employed. Most of the rest of the staff, sadly, will not. Editors. anchors. Gone.

Some who have toiled for years. Mike Jones, I'm reminded by another former CNNRadio journalist, just celebrated his 25th anniversary there.

In some ways, this is a result of a changing media world. Perhaps CNN has lost some of its luster. The brand no longer attractive to as many radio stations. Or maybe it's just the economy. CNNRadio is not the first radio network to fold. It probably won't be the last.

I can write from my very narrow perspective about what it was like to work as correspondent for CNNRadio. The stories I covered. The lives I may have affected. The lives that, without question, affected me. People who were kind enough to invite me into their spheres for a period of time and to share with me - and by extension - my audience - a degree of intimacy. The kind of intimacy only radio can instill.

I remember being on the air - live - as the second tower came rumbling down on a day that remains as vivid today as then - September 11, 2001. Choking back my tears and emotions. Trying my best to remain objective. Failing at it.

When my vice president and general manager, Robert Garcia, phoned me the next day, I was afraid it was to tell me I was through - for being so opinionated in my reporting. Instead, he simply said, "this is the reason I hired you Gary."

It was that kind of leadership that made CNNRadio the family - and the fantastic news organization it was.

But being a correspondent in a bureau far removed from the daily activities of a network doesn't give one a full overview of what CNNRadio was. Robert, on the other hand, the man CNN entrusted to grow radio into a major player in a very competitive world, saw it from all sides. So I direct you to his blog. Where he, in much better fashion than I, can tell you from the heart how wrenching it is for him to see those left behind when he moved on suffer the news that their years of efforts have come to this.

Please click on this link to read his moving piece. And please join me in wishing my former colleagues and friends at CNNRadio the best of luck during these very trying times.