Bruce Ticker

Bruce S. Ticker

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

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

Down Under they don’t trust U.S. media

I have a few email addresses from congressmen and senators in Washington. I sometimes get responses to what I send or have to say to them. Some of them have read the SDJW and have seen Alon Ben-Meir’s article entitled ‘Repercussions of Israel’s Fractured Democracy’ (nothing wrong with that article) and Bruce S. Tickers story ‘Impeachment unlikely to affect Democratic control of the House’???. So I won’t send Joel Cohen’s item entitled “Trump seeks Israel’s help in Election” because one or more dopey members of Congress might take it seriously and make an issue of it. (To read more, please click on the headline.)

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Alon Ben-Meir, Bruce Ticker, International, Joel H. Cohen, John McCormick, Lawrence Baron, USA

Impeachment unlikely to affect Democratic control of the House

Pundits are questioning if the impeachment inquiry conducted by the House of Representatives will cost Democrats their majority in the House. What they overlook is the prospect that some Republicans may lose their jobs – like Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick who represents Bucks County and a sliver of Montgomery County in southeastern Pennsylvania. (To read more, please click on the headline)

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Bruce Ticker, USA

Fighting anti-Semitism at local levels of government

Excerpt: In Paterson and Trenton, both iconic cities in New Jersey, Michael Jackson and Kathy McBride are members of the city council today, and towards the other end of the country, Patrick Little is running for council in Garden City, Idaho, a suburb of Boise. Little is a white nationalist and a Republican. and Jackson and McBride are African-American Democrats.

Jackson played the race card in Paterson after he was admonished for proclaiming “Jew us down” during a council meeting on September 10 while debating the reconstruction of a local stadium, according to The Paterson Press. “That was meant with no malice,” Jackson said, noting that he learned the phrase during his “upbringing.”

The councilman subsequently questioned if the city administration was doing enough to quell violence involving young African men. In an argument with Mayor Andre Sayegh, he said the phrase was used by people to describe haggling. “I never use it,” the mayor said. (Please click headline to read full story)

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Bruce Ticker, USA

New York City adds an office to fight bias crimes

By Bruce S. Ticker PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — We will learn eventually if New York’s $1.7 million investment to contend with bias-related incidents will work, but the outbreak in attacks against Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn exposes ongoing drawbacks in the system. Deborah Lauter, who heads the newly created Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, hopes

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Bruce Ticker, USA