Monday, October 13, 2014
Syrian Jewish family said smuggled to Israel
A Jewish family from Syria was secretly smuggled into Israel several months ago with the aid of a network of Israeli businesspeople and has begun a new life in the Jewish state, according to a Monday report.Israelis and Palestinians join forces to combat Ebola
The family, one of the few remaining Jewish families in Syria, arrived in Israel “with nothing,” according to a Netanya businessman who helped them immigrate, Army Radio reported.
“In the first stage, the mother and daughter arrived, then the whole family came,” the businessman, identified only as David, told the station. The family arrived with no possessions, so “we donated to help them with everything they needed… we did our best to help them in their acclimation to Israel,” David added.
The businessman is part of a network of Israelis of Syrian origin who helped the family. MK Yisrael Hason of Kadima, who was born in Damascus and came to Israel at age seven, is part of the group. MK Shaul Mofaz of Kadima, who was born in Iran, hosted the Syrian family in his sukkah on Sunday.
Israeli and Palestinian officials met at the weekend to draw up an action plan to prevent the Ebola epidemic from spreading to the territories they control, the Israeli military said Sunday.Rashid Khalidi Bashes J Street's Activism
"During the meeting (on Saturday evening), updates were exchanged between the parties, and transfer of information was agreed upon by way of additional meetings to take place in order to further track the issue," said COGAT, the defence ministry unit responsible for Palestinian civilian coordination.
One proposal to combat the disease was for Israel to provide courses in advanced epidemiology for Palestinian and Jordanian medical staff, a health ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, well-known for his anti-Israel rhetoric, slammed J Street, an organization which claims to be pro-Israel, for failing to adequately oppose Israel's military actions in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge.
Speaking at the "Open Hillel" conference, Khalidi said that J Street "needs more radical critique...if it wants real change,"Jeremy Pressman wrote on Twitter. One Jewish Voice for Peace activist noted that Khalidi stated to J Street that "if u [sic] call Israel's attacks on Gaza 'self defense' you can't be agents of change." Khalidi's remarks were met with strong applause.
Over the summer, Israel was forced to defend itself from over 3,000 rockets fired by Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization, which has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007.
According to one attendee, J Street U members in attendance huddled together at the conclusion of the speech, were "visibly upset" and could be overheard reassuring each other not to worry about Khalidi's demands. (h/t MtTB)
Israel’s Legal Wars
Among the more difficult challenges faced by Israel and its lawyers during the recent operation “Protective Edge” I would mention the following (please note that this is not an exhaustive list): How to respond to rocket, mortar, live-fire and tunnel attacks all originating from within, next to or under occupied civilian homes and premises? How to react to the continuous Hamas use of protected facilities, such as mosques, schools and hospitals, to mask and hide military activities and stockpiles? Should Israel provide advance notice of impending attacks, so as to enable the civilian population to leave the area? In this regard, it is important to note that providing such notice obviously takes away the crucial element of surprise. Additionally – Hamas publicly threatened its own population not to vacate areas of impending attacks, in order to force Israel to choose between conducting military operations in a civilian-rich environment (thus probably increasing civilian casualties) and foregoing the attacks entirely.A day in the life of the IDF Paratroopers’ forward company
Now that the actual fighting has ended, the next-stage dilemmas are no less challenging. First – how best to investigate specific incidents concerning which allegations of wrongdoing have been raised? The Turkel Commission, established in 2011 by the Israeli government following the Mavi Marmara incident, submitted a long list of recommendations in this regard, all aimed at ensuring that Israeli investigations conform to equivalent practices in other western states. Second, whether or not to cooperate with the “Commission of Inquiry on Gaza” recently established by the UN’s Human Rights Council? Israeli confidence in the objectivity and neutrality of this commission was justifiably shaken when it became apparent that the commission’s mandate was clearly biased (e.g. repeated references to Israeli attacks in Gaza, but no mention of Hamas and its unlawful attacks against Israeli civilian population centers); that the international expert chosen to head the committee was on public record stating that Israeli leaders should be prosecuted for war crimes; and the fact that none of the chosen commission members has any military or security background.
No matter how Israel decides to answer these, and other, challenges, one can rest assured that any Israeli decision will be challenged, first in the public opinion arena, and later in the legal battlefield which is becoming an ever-present part of the regional conflict.
When it comes to covering large numbers of security sectors in short periods of time, few units can compete with the Palhod (forward) Company of the Paratroop Brigade’s 890th Battalion.IDF in Gaza: The Dogs of War (VIDEO)
From June until now, the unit covered six security sectors, fought in the Gaza war and managed to squeeze in intense combat training sessions in between.
Capt. Itay Elyasof, commander of the Palhod Company, told The Jerusalem Post last week that his soldiers were the first paratroopers to cross into Gaza, clear a path forward and engage the enemy.
“We blazed a trail for the rest of the brigade,” he said.
The forward company is tasked with engaging the enemy first, and specializes in navigating hostile territory.
While the IDF’s soldiers, jets, Iron Dome rockets, tanks and artillery were all vital during the summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, the army’s “Oketz” (“Sting”) K-9 Corps also played a vital role throughout the fighting, Israel’s Channel Two reported on Friday.An unknown story from the Yom Kippur war: Israeli F-4s vs North Korean MiG-21s
“The unit’s soldiers undergo intense training to lead infantry forces and special units into battle,” according to the IDF. “They prepare year round to join IDF troops in all sorts of situations, from basic missions to the most complex operations.”
“Our dogs are filled with motivation, and they rarely reveal that something is wrong with them,” Maj. “A,” one of the unit’s senior veterinarians, said on the army’s blog page. “On the first day of the operation’s ground phase, a bullet entered Whiskey’s leg near a major artery. Despite his injury, he continued to carry out his mission alongside IDF soldiers,” according to the Major.
Even if the McDonnell Douglas F-4 was developed as interceptor in response to the need of the U.S. Navy to protect their aircraft carrier, the ultimate version of the Phantom II was the USAF F-4E, a multi role fighter which was also sold to several air forces around the world. One of the countries to receive the F-4E was Israel that bought the first examples in 1969 and later made the Phantom the mainstay of its Air Power bringing the F-4 in all the major Arab-Israeli conflicts.Local Arab Priest: Israel a Refuge for Persecuted Middle East Christians; One killed Every 5 Minutes (VIDEO)
In 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli Air force (IAF) found itself facing an Arab Air Forces coalition which was composed not only by Egyptian and Syrian fighter squadrons, but also by units from Algeria, Iraq, Libya and … North Korea, that deployed a MiG-21 squadron to Bir Arida to protect Egypt’s south.
Obviously, at the time, IAF pilots didn’t know that some of the MiGs they would face were from North Korea. However the first engagement between North Korean pilots and Israeli pilots took place on Oct. 6, 1973 when two F-4 Kurnass (Sledgehammer) pairs from 69 and 119 Squadrons were scrambled from Ramat David Air Base for a patrol over the Gulf of Suez sector.
The F-4s of the two squadrons were teamed together and the 69 pair (which had their crews formed by Shadmi and Gur on board the first aircraft and Shpitzer and Ofer on the other one) leading the mission. (h/t Yenta Press)
A controversial Israeli-Arab Greek Orthodox Priest recently told an Israeli television host that “a Christian is being killed every five minutes in the Middle East,” and that Israel is their safest refuge.Why we published 'The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel'
Father Gabriel Nadaf, in a live feed late last week with the host of the popular late night program, “Tzinor Layla” (“Night Tubes”), described his recent address before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, in which he called on the world to stand by Israel in its fight against Islamic terrorism.
“Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are safe,” declared Nadaf, who has been sharply criticized by many Israeli Arabs for his staunch public calls for enlistment of Israeli Christian Arabs into the IDF.
In 2012, he created The Forum for the Enlistment of the Christian Community group, a move which has earned him the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but scorn and even death threats from some Israeli Arabs.
There is no doubt, however, what will prove the most controversial topic we address—anti-Semitism. We believe that the BDS effort not only to delegitimate the Israeli state but actually to eliminate it is a fundamentally anti-Semitic project. It doesn’t matter whether the average student BDS foot soldier understands that. And we do not assume that those advocating an end to the Jewish homeland are personally anti-Semitic. We have no DNA test to find out. What matters is that the consequences of this agenda being carried out would be devastating for Israelis and for many Jews worldwide.Richard Silverstein Exposed. Again
We also make it very clear that it is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israeli government policy. Indeed Israelis themselves do that relentlessly. As a movement, however, BDS often recycles traditional anti-Semitic tropes. Once again, its many naïve acolytes do not know enough about history to be aware what they are doing, but their worldwide audiences often do.
I encounter many otherwise sophisticated faculty members who have no idea that the study and analysis of anti-Semitism is a recognized academic specialization. So they panic when they learn the book investigates the issue, assuming all it could mean is that we are accusing people of being anti-Semites. Whether such people can reexamine their assumptions remains to be seen. But it is a major aim of The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel to encourage them to try.
Richard Silverstein has accused Israeli doctors of killing " tens of thousands of Arab children", by irradiating them as part of the treatment for Tinea capitis; ringworm, a very common and very contagious fungal infectionKafka Was the Rage
Silverstein is a bit late jumping on the demonization bandwagon for this one. This antisemitic meme drifted through the Bay area in 2008, and was soundly rebuked on the hard left's own agitprop site, Indybay.
According to a commenter on the site, the standard treatment for ringworm at the time was radiation. This was an article from a 1949 California medical journal
Yes, Silverstein is condemning Israeli doctors for treating patients with radiation, which was considered the state of the art treatment at the time.
Wait, Wait! There's more. Silverstein's headline reads "When Israeli Doctors killed Tens of Thousands of Arab Children" , prompting one of this followers to respond "Genocide".
The email arrived on the last Friday afternoon of the spring term shortly before 5:00 p.m. Anastasia Coleman, Fordham’s Director of Institutional Equity and Compliance, and its Title IX Coordinator, wanted to meet with me. “It has been alleged,” she wrote, “that you may have acted in an inappropriate way and possibly discriminated against another person at the University.”Our Goal In BDS Is Actually To Put Washed-Up Artists Back In The News (satire)
“Did it have anything to do with a student?” I shot back anxiously, hoping to get a sense of my predicament before the director left for the weekend. I was lucky. Coleman responded immediately. “This does not involve students and is about your behavior regarding American Studies.”
What a relief. But it was also very odd. The decision of the American Studies Association to boycott Israeli universities in December 2013 had upset me. I wrote emails, circulated articles, and was pleased that my university president quickly declared his opposition to the measure. I joined a national steering committee that set out to fight the boycott and participated in the drafting of a few statements. As an American historian who delivered in 1987 his first paper at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association and served on the executive committee of Fordham’s American Studies program, I wanted Fordham’s program to sever official ties with the national organization until it rescinded the measure. Other programs have taken this courageous symbolic step, and I thought it proper for the Jesuit university of New York to take the moral stand against what most scholars of anti-Semitism consider anti-Semitic bigotry.
No one really cares about Palestinians, after all. There’s no outcry over the thousands of them killed in Syria over the course of the ongoing civil war. We don’t hear a whisper of condemnation from the international Left over Hamas brutalizing and exploiting the lives of Gaza residents for political or PR gain. But the political hot-button that Israel can be serves as a lightning rod for desperately needed attention for celebrities who once commanded headlines, but must now do voice-overs for ads on local radio or perform in nursing homes to make a living.Israel’s Freedom of the Press; New York Times “Nonsense”
Imagine what could have been if we were as active back in 2004 when Janet Jackson, who jumped the shark in the eighties, had Justin Timberlake expose her nipple at the Super Bowl halftime show. Such a controversial “wardrobe malfunction” could have been avoided entirely – just have Ms. Jackson announce a planned concert in Tel Aviv, and boom! Instant BDS storm, pushing her back onto the pages of news publications that forgot her long ago. Our movement exists to provide just that sort of nudity-free “controversy” that conveniently gives media exposure to artists desperately seeking to assert cultural relevance.
We could have done the same for George Michael. Phil Spector. Tommy Lee. Randy Travis. And those are just the musicians; we could have given a non-violent, non-lewd outlet for capturing another few moments of fame to actors, as well. What a positive force BDS can be! We should be on the contact list of every publicist for aging, irrelevant, or otherwise forgotten stars.
So cut us some slack on the hypocrisy front. We perform a valuable public service.
The BBC World Service, a Nazi analogy and George Clooney’s mum-in-law
There was also no discussion of the Palestinians’ intimidation of the press. While the NYT was printing its anti-Israel editorial, the Foreign Press Association was reporting on the intense discrimination they endured in covering Operation Protective Edge: “The FPA protests in the strongest terms the blatant, incessant, forceful and unorthodox methods employed by the Hamas authorities and their representatives against visiting international journalists in Gaza.” Even the extreme Israeli left-wing paper Haaretz reported that ““some reporters received death threats. Sometimes, cameras were smashed. Reporters were prevented from filming anti-Hamas demonstrations where more than 20 Palestinians were shot dead by Hamas gunmen.”
The New York Times did not report on any of this. The only time the NYT opted to quote the FPA during the 2014 Palestinian war against Israel was early in the conflict on July 23 when the FPA complained about Israeli intimidation.
Following the conversation between Lapa and Worricker, the latter invited his studio guests to comment on what they had just heard with the first to speak being author and Economist correspondent Tim Judah. Worricker’s second guest – foreign editor of Al Hayat, Bariaa Alamuddin (aka George Clooney’s mother-in-law) – was then invited to comment too.BBC Radio 4 programme on UAVs lacks transparency and adherence to editorial guidelines
Worricker: “Bariaa – what did you draw out of what you heard from Vanessa Lapa?”
Alamuddin: “Ah…quite a few things actually. Of course one always should look back at this with horror of course. The massacres and the Holocaust was a very bad point in the history of human beings. Nevertheless, it’s interesting the audience in Jerusalem – I’m sure there were no Palestinians in the attendance there – and what is something that I do not understand at all is where the Jews have suffered all this, how they can inflict on the Palestinians what they do. It’s something that must be in the psychic of every Jew and for them to elect people like Netanyahu or the rest of his cabinet and to…for them to go onto wars like the last Gaza war – I mean indeed since ’48 they must have killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – this is an aspect that I do not understand about the Holocaust. I love history…”
It would also have been appropriate for audiences to be informed of the fact that War on Want is part of what is known as the ‘Drone Campaign Network’ and that another member of that group is an organization called ‘Drone Wars UK’ which is run by someone named Chris Cole: an extraordinarily similar name to that of the person appearing in this BBC programme. That Chris Cole is also ‘convener‘ or ‘coordinator‘ for the Drone Campaign Network. In addition, Cole is also a member of Pax Christi: an organization which does its own fair share of anti-Israel campaigning and promotion of BDS and is also a member of the ‘Drone Campaign Network’.Jewish Journalist Colleagues: Stop the Self-Censorship
Coincidentally or not, this BBC commissioned programme was aired during the Drone Campaign Network’s “Drones Week of Action 2014” which includes events sponsored by Pax Christi and Friends of Sabeel UK, the publicity for which includes a link to Cole’s website. One of those events is a “vigil” at the Elbit Systems factory in Shenstone which has already been the target of previous actions by anti-Israel campaigners, supported – inter alia – by the ‘Drone Campaign Network’, Amnesty International and War on Want.
It is of course very revealing (and hardly coincidental) that the only “critics” of UAVs heard by listeners to this programme are those who also have an anti-Israel agenda, even though – as is noted in the programme – around a hundred countries manufacture drones. As is all too apparent, the claim made in the synopsis of this programme that it would “explore the debate” surrounding UAVs is actually nothing more than an opening for the context-free amplification of professional activists from organisations which employ the subject of UAVs as part of their political campaigns to delegitimise Israel.
Over the past six years, we have been filming Palestinian education in the UNRWA camps that serve the descendants of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. We have also acquired and commissioned translations of the new Palestinian school books published by the PA with funding from the US and other nations, and we have provided our coverage for media outlets in all nations that currently fund the PA and UNRWA.Crown Heights Store Trashed by 50 Hooligans [video]
In that context, our agency has just released a new film, UNRWA GOES TO WAR, shot on location in UNRWA facilities near Gaza, Ramallah and Jenín, filmed by Palestinian TV crews who literally took their lives in their hands.
This film will be screened at the US Congress and for 12 other legislative bodies that fund UNRWA in the near future.
We have asked to screen 15 minutes of “UNRWA GOES TO WAR” at the forthcoming session of the American Jewish Press Association annual conference that will take place in Maryland, at the session designed for Jewish journalists to share their special projects.
Yet AJPA has so far said no to the screening. We appeal that decision.
A group of 50 to 75 teenage hooligans entered a Jewish-owned grocery store, Gourmet Butcher, on Carroll and Troy street in Crown Heights and trashed it, according to a CrownHeights.info report.ZOA Presses Nike on Refusal to Address Video Ad With Anti-Semitic Overtones
The attack happened on Saturday night, when a group of teenagers vandalizing cars and school buses on the street, then entered the store, trashed it, and assaulted one of the workers.
The owner, Yanki Klein, called the police. He also said that besides regularly stealing products, teenagers have come into his store yelling “heil Hitler”. (h/t Bob Knot)
In 1997, when the Muslim community objected to a logo on a line of Nike sneakers because the logo was perceived to resemble the word “Allah,” Nike publicly apologized to Muslims for any unintentional offense, agreed to recall all products carrying the design, introduced training for Nike designers in Islamic imagery, and agreed to investigate how the design came about.Londoner who Screamed 'Burn the Jews' on a Bus Found Guilty
Going even further, Nike agreed to build three playgrounds for Islamic communities in the U.S., at locations determined by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
ZOA said that while it isn’t asking for the construction of any playgrounds in Jewish communities, it expects Nike “to show the same concern about having offended the Jewish community, as it showed when the Muslim community was offended by Nike’s actions.” ZOA told Nike it would give the company 15 days to respond to the Sept. 18 letter, which to date has not been answered.
“We urge Nike to stop treating this matter without the sensitivity and concern it deserves,” Klein and Tuchman wrote. “Otherwise, we will be compelled to notify the public by articles, letters, and even advertisements, and to call on consumers to stop purchasing Nike products.”
Responding to Nike’s defense that the logo on the clones’ uniforms was intended as a soccer ball rather than a Jewish star, Klein told JNS.org, “If it’s readily recognized as a Jewish star, it’s a Jewish star. … Most people [who see the ad] will think it’s a Jewish star.”
“You would have never seen this [kind of offensive ad] a year or two ago in America,” he added.
Nike did not return a request for comment from JNS.org.
The 42-year-old Briton who spewed anti-Semitic curses on September 16 on a London bus filled with Jewish schoolchildren was found guilty of his crimes on Thursday.2 Israelis listed among 25 most powerful women in television
The man, Ian Campbell of Bowes Road, N11, was arrested in late September and charged with "using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior to cause harassment, alarm or distress" on the 102 bus in the predominantly Jewish Golder's Green neighborhood.
Campbell allegedly shouted "I hate the Jews, burn them. I’m going to burn this bus," and said the traffic was "the Jews’ fault." He also reportedly said "get the Jews off the bus, all they do is (expletive) us."
At the Hendon Magistrates Court on Thursday morning Campbell pleaded guilty to his charges, and was put on bail until October 31 when he will be sentenced following a mental health assessment.
Israeli newscaster Ilana Dayan and television producer Tamira Yardeni were listed as two of Hollywood Reporter's 25 most powerful women in global television.Richard Gere to shoot movie in Israel
The influential Hollywood periodical's most recent issue cited Ilana Dayan for breaking the glass ceiling for women as a journalist at Israel's Army Radio, then hosting news program "Erev Hadash" ("A New Evening") and later running her own investigative journalism show "Uvda" ("Fact").
Hollywood reporter listed Tamira Yardeni for owning the Tedy Production company with her husband and her success producing Israel's singing and talent show "A Star is Born."
Actor Richard Gere reportedly is set to star in a new film by award-winning Israeli director Joseph Cedar.Toyota International looks for next Israeli startup
Cedar also wrote the screenplay for the movie, which will be filmed in both New York and Israel, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday.
Two of Cedar’s films, “Footnote” and “Beaufort,” were nominated for Academy Awards.
The movie is expected to be called “Oppenheimer,” according to Yedioth, and also will star Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi.
TOYOTA Information Technology Center is co-hosting a meetup/hackathon in Israel to find new initiatives for automotive technology. The October 23-24, 2014 event in Tel Aviv will be the first tech event put on by a large Japanese corporation in Israel, allowing programmers and entrepreneurs to present ideas on improving car safety and performance, Toyota announced.IBM eyes Israeli start-ups for new apps that ‘think’
The event will take place in cooperation with the Japan Innovation Center, Israel Japan Chamber of Commerce and Samurai Incubate. The goal is to match Israeli start-ups with Japanese corporations.
IBM is looking to Israeli start-ups to develop the next generation of “thinking” computer technology– cognitive applications that use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to “figure out” how to respond to a set of circumstances. Israel, said Dror Pearl, head of IBM Israel’s Global Technology Unit (GTU), has been an important source for some of this cognitive technology, and IBM is hopeful that start-ups that enroll in the next round of IBM’s AlphaZone Accelerator program will develop cognitive apps that make use of big data, harnessing it to create apps that can essentially “think.”Israel successfully tests 'naval Iron Dome'
The Israeli Navy secretly tested an upgraded anti-missile system designed to protect naval vessels several months ago. The test was crowned a success.Israeli salt ‘sprinkled’ with international awards
The defense system, which uses Barak missiles, was upgraded to confront the growing threat of Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship cruise missiles.
The Yakhont missiles pose a threat mainly because of their potential use by Israel's neighbors. Russia has been supplying Syria with Yakhont missiles since 2010. Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, is also believed to possess these shore-based missiles.
The test was conducted as part of a general overhaul of the navy's defense systems, which also provide protection for offshore drilling rigs.
Israel is known as the land of milk and honey – and now salt, too. Israel’s Salt of the Earth, which packages salt mined in Israel, has just won awards from SIAL Innovation Selection 2014. SIAL (Salon International de l’alimentation) is the world’s largest food trade show, and SIAL Innovation Awards are among the most coveted honors given out in the food business.In tech to make Ebola vaccine, Israeli firm was there first
Salt of the Earth (“Melach ha’aretz” is the company’s Hebrew name), a part of the Arison Group, has been mining salt since 1922, selling to both the retail and industrial markets. The salt is mined in the areas of Eilat in southern Israel and Atlit, near Haifa, in an environmentally responsible manner, preserving harvesting areas “as nature reserves, islands of greenery, hosting many species of animals and combining bird-watching and nature activities through setting up lookout points as well as habitation and nesting areas for thousands of waterfowls and migratory birds,” the company says, and it “cooperates with the Israel Nature & National Parks Protection Authority in the protection of sea turtles.”
Scientists around the world scrambling to find a treatment for Ebola are looking to the tobacco plant for assistance, as a vehicle to synthesize antibodies for a vaccine. And that means they are likely to be looking towards Israel’s CollPlant, a company that is a pioneer in the development of recombinant proteins using tobacco plants.Where's the Coverage? Israeli Innovation Tackles Ebola
While CollPlant is not involved with the development of Zmapp, the tobacco-synthesized “cocktail” being developed by several American companies that, so far, is the only Ebola treatment on the horizon, the Israeli company knows a great deal about large-scale production of human cells in tobacco plants, said Prof. Oded Shoseyov, founder and chief scientific officer of CollPlant. “We were the first company in the world to use tobacco plants to do large-scale manufacturing of human proteins, and to receive EU permission to market tobacco-synthesized human elements,” he told The Times of Israel in an interview.
As the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States has passed away, it is not surprising that a search of Google News for “Ebola” will turn up roughly 32 million hits. But very little of the coverage mentions Israel’s leading role in battling this deadly disease.Vegan festival said to be world’s biggest
Only the Israeli and Jewish press mention virologist Dr. Leslie Lobel and his fellow researchers at Ben Gurion University, despite the fact that, as The Times of Israel reports, they “are partnering with the US military and the Uganda Virus Research Institute to devise a way of conferring long-term immunity against the disease.” Lobel has been traveling to Africa to research a cure for a dozen years. Media--? Crickets.
Israel hosted on Monday what organizers say is the largest vegan festival in the world. Vegan Fest 2014, a daylong event featuring workshops, lectures, panels, concerts and (of course) meat- and dairy-free food, was expected to attract some 15,000 people to Park Leumi in Ramat Gan.The most amazing pro-Israel Yom Kippur sermon
Despite the Israeli love for the outdoor barbecue, especially prevalent during the current Sukkot holiday and on Independence Day, Israel actually has the highest number of vegans in the world per capita, at about 4 percent of the population, according to an Israel21c report.
Israelis’ awareness of veganism — eating a diet free of animal products — has skyrocketed recently, partly due to the efforts of activist Tal Gilboa, who in August won Israel’s version of the reality show “Big Brother.” During her run on the popular show, Gilboa was outspoken about her vegan lifestyle, and even convinced several other contestants to change their diet.
There is another way, which is to make the case for Israel, spiritually and politically.Jewish Legion commander’s ashes brought to Israel
So it was quire satisfying to hear this Yom Kippur sermon by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of New York’s Central Synagogue. She has a fascinating background and has received quite a bit of attention, but for now, I want to focus on her Yom Kippur sermon.
There are so many quotable lines, and you can find a partial transcript below. Listen to the whole thing, it gains power and strength as the sermon continues. It’s among the best 25 minutes you will ever spend.
The commander of the Jewish Legion, Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, who died in 1947, was exhumed and his ashes brought to Israel, in a fulfillment of the Christian Zionist’s final wish to be buried in the Holy Land, the Prime Minister’s Office announced Sunday.
“Patterson was one of the founders of the Jewish Legion, the first Jewish military force since the Bar Kochba revolt, and the basis for what would become the Israel Defense Forces,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Netanyahu said his parents, who were acquainted with Patterson, “spoke warmly” of the man “who worked with my father for the Zionist cause in the 1940s in the United States.”
The prime minister added that his late brother, Yoni Netanyahu, was named for Patterson, who was his godfather. Patterson gave Yoni Netanyahu a silver chalice, which “linked the commander of the renascent Jewish fighting force with one of Israel’s future military commanders,” he wrote.
