Some­times one per­son in the scheme of things doesn’t seem influ­en­tial enough to make a dif­fer­ence. Yet, what if that one per­son is pas­sion­ate, coura­geous and ready to take a stand? Con­sider being one of thou­sands of Hous­ton com­muters on U.S. 59 N. when dozens can­vas the Man­dell Bridge with signs that say, “Israel Out of the Mid­dle East” or “Judaism Isn’t a Real Reli­gion” or “Stop Fund­ing Israel Apartheid.” While some rolled their eyes and sighed as they as they inched past this weekly nui­sance, oth­ers stared in dis­be­lief hop­ing some­one would chase them away. Some­one did. Meet a Jew­ish Hous­ton­ian and son of Holo­caust sur­vivors who felt his home­town of over 2.25 mil­lion had no place for haters.

Part 3: Ira Blei­weiss, Bridge Houston

Ini­tially, Ira Blei­weiss was like many other evening com­muters. He drove by fum­ing silently watch­ing Pro­gres­sive Action Alliance (PAA) demon­stra­tors hold signs that demo­nized Israel. But one day in March 2007 all that changed. Fed up with the grow­ing anti­se­mitic tone of the group’s sig­nage, Blei­weiss asked the pro­tes­tors the 64 thou­sand dol­lar ques­tion: Why? They replied that they were just try­ing to stop injus­tice in the world, but Blei­weiss didn’t buy it. So he talked to them about other areas of the world fac­ing unrest and got lit­tle response. 

“There are about 70 major con­flicts in the world and none fazed them. Their sole focus was on Israel and Jews. They had no inter­est Dar­fur or the Congo.”

They also didn’t care about the geno­cide in Rwanda where nearly 1 mil­lion peo­ple were hacked to death. And they didn’t care about the pile of bod­ies stack­ing up in law­less Soma­lia.  Sri Lanka wasn’t even on their radar. Nor were the Tamil Tigers. Their sole focus? Israel and Jews. And this tar­geted agenda told Blei­weiss all he needed to know.

The PAA did unspeak­able acts like tried to mis­rep­re­sent Judaism as a satanic cult and used a Tal­mud (Rab­bini­cal writ­ings con­sti­tut­ing Jew­ish laws) like it was black magic. But the group made an already fed up Blei­weiss even angrier when they held a poster of Anne Frank in a kaf­fiyah (tra­di­tional Arab head­dress). Talk about evil. Draw­ing a kaf­fiyah on a young Jew­ish girl that hid from Nazis before meet­ing an early death in a con­cen­tra­tion camp was not a just a lie it was sick. And sug­gest­ing that she’s a Pales­tin­ian sym­pa­thizer or that Israel is a Nazi is even sicker.

Both are unfath­omable and unthink­able. The length of moral inver­sion that this group stoops to is unbe­liev­able. Israel is a coun­try founded in the exact loca­tion of its forebears—the Israelites—after the Nazis mur­dered over six mil­lion Jews and two mil­lion oth­ers. So mis­lead­ing peo­ple with doc­tored images, smear cam­paigns and false accu­sa­tions were not only base­less but hate­ful. Blei­weiss knows the hor­rors of the Holo­caust all too well from his par­ents’ per­sonal accounts and from his ser­vice as a docent at Holo­caust Museum Houston.

But Blei­weiss had a plan. He real­ized while orga­niz­ing vol­un­teers that he needed to fill the gap that was occur­ing between false alle­ga­tions on the bridge and the thou­sands of com­muters that might begin to believe it. Blei­weiss knew there was a need to bridge peace across all groups regard­less of race, eth­nic­ity or reli­gion. So he started Bridge Hous­ton, a grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to com­bat­ing haters and coun­ter­ing their anti-Israel pro­pa­ganda and lies about Zion­ism and Judaism.

First, Bridge Hous­ton dis­rupted the PAA bridge protests numer­ous times by orga­niz­ing groups of pro-Israel activists to arrive ear­lier. Bridge Houston’s vol­un­teers held signs that read, “Co-Exist”, “Teach Peace, Not Hate.” The response was encour­ag­ing. It didn’t take long for com­muters to show signs of sup­port by honk­ing, giv­ing thumbs up and shout­ing exu­ber­antly. Hous­ton com­muters wel­comed a peace­ful alter­na­tive to the hate they had wit­nessed on the Man­dell Bridge.

One of Bridge Houston’s slogan’s is “Peace = Pros­per­i­ty”. Blei­weiss is a firm believer that if Gazans wanted peace, they would stop launch­ing rock­ets at Israel and start focus­ing on pros­per­ity the way Jor­da­ni­ans did after they signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. He has seen how “Pales­tini­ans” have resorted to viral cam­paigns to smear Israel’s name and demo­nize the coun­try that no Arab armies have ever defeated. He, like Israel, is fight­ing back with the truth to pro­tect its bor­ders and cit­i­zens. He and Bridge Hous­ton encour­age those who love Israel to do the same.

Bridge Hous­ton then took their pro-Israel mes­sage every place anti-Israel protests occurred. Two weeks after fight­ing began between Israel and the Pales­tin­ian ter­ror­ist group, Hamas, hun­dreds of anti-Israel sup­port­ers held a rally near the Gal­le­ria on Jan­u­ary 10, 2009. At the time, Hamas had fired more 6,500 rock­ets and mor­tars at south­ern Israeli civil­ian tar­gets over the past three years, and refused to renew an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire, prompt­ing an Israeli mil­i­tary response against Hamas.

Sim­i­lar to pre­vi­ous demon­stra­tions, this one included com­par­isons of Jews and Israelis as Nazis, anti­se­mitic slurs and calls for the destruc­tion of Israel. Teenage pro­tes­tors car­ried a large Israeli flag with the words, “Israeli ter­ror­ism,” spray-painted across it in what looked like bloody let­ters. While the Bridge Hous­ton pro-Israel rally held signs that said “Co-Exist” and “Teach Peace not Hate,” the anti-Israel group had signs with bloody hand­prints on Israeli flags anti-Jewish pro­pa­ganda and Nazi swastikas.

Then came an onslaught of anti-Israel bill­boards across Greater Hous­ton. The Hous­ton Coali­tion for Jus­tice and Peace in Pales­tine (HCJPP) quickly blan­keted the city with 10 bill­boards that read, “Pray for Gaza.” The bill­boards fea­tured a cry­ing child, and pointed view­ers to a web­site con­tain­ing revi­sion­ist his­tory, mis­lead­ing sta­tis­tics and bogus alle­ga­tions. The pur­pose? To demo­nize Israel and dele­git­imize its right to exist. And how did the HCJPP afford to launch this lat­est pro­pa­ganda cam­paign with so many bill­boards? The Coun­cil of American-Islamic Rela­tions (CAIR) among oth­ers funds them. And who funds CAIR? The Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. Con­cerned? You’d have to be mis­in­formed, dead or a jihadist not to be.

So what did Bridge Hous­ton do? They part­nered with Stand­WithUs to tell the greater Hous­ton Israel’s side of the story and designed bill­boards that read SAVE GAZA FROM HAMAS, Teach PEACE, not HATE. The pro-Israel bill­boards fea­ture an Arab boy and an Israeli boy, arm-in-arm, show­ing that coex­is­tence is pos­si­ble to achieve with peace. The signs direct view­ers to Bridge Hous­ton and Stand­WithUs for more infor­ma­tion about Israel, Gaza and the Arab-Israeli con­flict. The only issue now is that there are ONLY two pro-Israel bill­boards against 10 anti-Israel billboards.

The pro­pa­ganda machine of the Pales­tini­ans has got­ten so out of hand that groups that are ultra lib­eral (i.e., we sup­port ter­ror­ists) are crop­ping up solely to demo­nize Israel. The HCJPP announced in Jan­u­ary 2009 that they were stag­ing a “silent protest” in an attempt to equate the Israeli oper­a­tion against Hamas ter­ror­ists in the Gaza Strip with the Nazi geno­cide of Euro­pean Jewry. The loca­tion of the protest was none other than Holo­caust Museum Hous­ton.

To sup­port Israel and those that endured the Holo­caust (both alive and deceased), Blei­weiss orga­nized over 300 Hous­to­ni­ans both Jews and non-Jews along with six rab­bis, Chris­t­ian Zion­ists, sev­eral Holo­caust sur­vivors and U.S. Con­gress­man John Cul­ber­son, R-TX to counter the anti-Israel group. The haters showed up with 200 pro­test­ers, some wear­ing mock-Auschwitz uni­forms hold­ing signs equat­ing Israel to Nazi Ger­many. Unbe­liev­able. The result? Only 200 anti-Israel pro­tes­tors showed and most who reported on the inci­dent saw the attempts to dis­credit Israel and the Holo­caust a failure.

But Blei­weiss has cause for con­cern as there is resur­gence in anti­se­mitic attacks occur­ring against Jews, syn­a­gogues and stu­dents world­wide. He recounts 2009 defac­ing of meno­rahs and syn­a­gogues in Europe not to men­tion the Auschwitz sign that neo-Nazis stole last year. He is see­ing more anti-Israel groups and speak­ers descend on uni­ver­si­ties glob­ally, and recalls a recent inci­dent in Ft. Laud­erdale where pro­tes­tors screamed “The Ovens Weren’t Big Enough” and another in Los Ange­les where pro­tes­tors held signs that read, “Hitler was Right.” For Blei­weiss, this tide of reli­gious intol­er­ance, anti­semitism and vio­lence world­wide is not a ques­tion of will it ever hap­pen again but will it ever hap­pen here.

Recently, Bridge Hous­ton marched in the 32^nd annual “Orig­i­nal” Dr. Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Parade held Jan­u­ary 18 to com­mem­o­rate MLK’s staunch sup­port of the State of Israel and to honor the legacy of black-Jewish part­ner­ships. Sup­port­ers for Bridge Hous­ton wore blue and white and car­ried a large ban­ner that read MLK LOVED ISRAEL. The group’s involve­ment was crit­i­cal as the pre­vi­ous year the HCJPP injected an anti-Israel mes­sage into the Black Her­itage Society’s MLK Day parade. By chant­ing, “Pales­tine will be free – from the [Jor­dan] River to the [Mediter­ranean] Sea,” the anti-Israel group paid a great insult to Dr. King’s mem­ory and life’s work. Bridge Hous­ton was deter­mined not to let that happen.

Blei­weiss most recently debunked the notion that kids are starv­ing in Gaza on the Jan­u­ary 25^th edi­tion of the What’s Up Radio Pro­gram with con­ser­v­a­tive host, Terry Lowry. How so? He got stats from UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) that proved Gazan chil­dren fare much bet­ter when it comes to nutri­tion than most of the Arab oil-producing nations around it. He described the stats as eye-opening:

Mal­nu­tri­tion in the Mid­dle East

Source: UNICEF, 2009

Any­one fol­low­ing Israel closely knows the UN has not been much of a friend to Israel since the incep­tion of the Jew­ish state in 1948. The fact Blei­weiss pulled the UN’s stats shows he’s going out of his way to dis­prove false allegations.

Blei­weiss is also con­cerned about col­leges becom­ing more lib­eral and find­ing it fash­ion­able to den­i­grate Israel. He called atten­tion to the fact that Rice Uni­ver­sity Baker Insti­tute invited the con­tro­ver­sial speaker and for­mer Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion and Research for the Pales­tin­ian Author­ity, Hanan Ashrawi, to speak with­out invit­ing an equiv­a­lent Israeli speaker. Ashawari played a promi­nent role in the 1^st Intifada and worked hand-in-hand with for­mer PLO Leader Yasser Arafat. Not quite the role model most law-abiding par­ents want their col­lege stu­dent to hear.

Ashrawi is quoted as say­ing, “I see it (the intifada with its sui­cide bomb­ing that began Sep­tem­ber 20) as an expres­sion of the will of the spirit of the peo­ple that will not suc­cumb to coer­cion or sub­ju­ga­tion. Pop­u­lar protests and acts of resis­tance, polit­i­cal human resis­tance, are nec­es­sary to demon­strate the people’s will.”

Blei­weiss takes issue with the fact that most par­ents would be out­raged if they knew they were bankrolling speak­ers that sym­pa­thized with ter­ror­ists and sui­cide bombers at their kid’s uni­ver­sity. He also shines the light on the fact that Ashrawi is a Chris­t­ian Lebanese woman and she is defend­ing a religion—Islam—that den­i­grates women and is either killing or forc­ing a mass exo­dus on Chris­tians. For instance, Beth­le­hem used to be over 80 per­cent Chris­t­ian 40 – 50 years ago. Today, Beth­le­hem is less than 20 per­cent Chris­t­ian. Assault is on the rise among Chris­tians in Beth­le­hem, and so are reports of Pales­tin­ian mafia extort­ing Chris­t­ian busi­ness own­ers for pro­tec­tion money.

Another alarm­ing fact is what is about to occur next month. The Mus­lim Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion is spon­sor­ing its sixth annual Israel Apartheid month in cities and col­leges world­wide in March. Blei­weiss is get­ting the word out that much of what they are doing is a moral inver­sion by com­par­ing Gaza to South African apartheid, call­ing Israel a Nazi, com­par­ing Gaza to the Holo­caust and ask­ing the world to divest, sanc­tion or boy­cott Israel. He is ask­ing for those who care about jus­tice to come together as a group and not allow this kind of atroc­ity to occur at uni­ver­si­ties and cities around the world.

In his effort to bridge the com­mu­nity, Blei­weiss has found an ally in for­mer Black Pan­ther Quanell X. The activists recently joined forces Octo­ber of 2009 to chal­lenge a speech in Hous­ton by Holo­caust denier, David Irving.

Oth­er recent devel­op­ments along this line include protests at the Israeli Con­sulate that involved stu­dents from the Al-Hadi School of Accel­er­a­tive Learn­ing, an Islamic school in Hous­ton, Texas. While Hous­ton is not expe­ri­enc­ing the same degree of anti-Semitism as reported in some cities like Dear­born, Michi­gan, the FBI claims it has a strong Hamas base. Proof: The U.S. fed­eral gov­ern­ment seized the school along with a Man­hat­tan sky­scraper and four U.S. mosques cit­ing alleged links to the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment. All are owned by Iran­ian backed Alavi Foun­da­tion and the Assa Cor­po­ra­tion.

Orga­ni­za­tions like Act! for Amer­ica urge cit­i­zens to step up and find out who owns busi­nesses like the ones seized by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment if you feel they might be mis­us­ing tax­payer fund­ing. In fact, Act! for Amer­ica was one of the first to claim the Ft. Hood shooter would have links to a local mosque, and author­i­ties iden­ti­fied it shortly after the mas­sacre to one just out­side of D.C.

Bridge Hous­ton is proof that one person’s involve­ment mat­ters. But with all the anti­semitism, anti-Zionism and left­ists who cod­dle ter­ror­ists, crim­i­nals and those who fund them, we need everyone’s help. Ready to counter the pro­pa­ganda, stem hatred and stop revi­sion­ism? Visit the Bridge Hous­ton site to learn more, sign up for email alerts and dis­cover other ways you get involved. Stay abreast of the lat­est devel­op­ments by fol­low­ing Bridge Hous­ton on Face­book.

All pho­tos: Jew­ish Her­ald Voice