Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Jews are Indigenous: Why Israel Advocacy Fails
So why do those who care about indigenous rights not support a native people’s right to live on its ancestral lands?US bill seeks to link massive EU trade pact with BDS rejection
Both liberal and conservative Israel advocacy organizations in America are doing it wrong. Every time they portray Israel as a Western country, identify Jews (even indirectly) as white people while simultaneously referring to our ancient national culture as a “religion” or speak in a mannerism which would suggest we are anything but an indigenous people, they are reinforcing the bizarre but successful anti-Israel narrative depicting us as Western European colonialists in a foreign land. Since the hasbara industry has collectively been identifying us in this fashion for years we shouldn’t be surprised when we are told to “go back to Europe.” When all of the largest Jewish American Israel advocacy groups, whether right or left, insist on this false Western presentation of our people it not only weakens our position, it also destroys the possibility of ever truly integrating into the region and making peace with our neighbors. A Western country does not belong in the Middle East and the inclination of the other peoples of the region to oppose such a state is instinctive.
Gay rights, women’s rights and Western-style democracy are also not going to do the trick as all three are irrelevant to the core issue at hand, and true indigenous status easily trumps all three in the minds of even the most progressive young activists. Even if such topics may help gain the support of many American liberals, focusing on these issues bolsters the narrative that we are foreign to the Middle East, ultimately falsifying our people’s true historic narrative and further alienating the other Semitic peoples from us (those we are actually destined to live with). It is also time to throw away the (somewhat arrogant and very much irrelevant to the point of discussion) “we are the good guys because we are more civilized/produce better technology/have more Nobel prizes than you” rhetoric and go back to the authentic definition of Zionism as an indigenous people’s liberation movement, with our inherent connection to our land based on indigenous rights, the correction of historic injustices and the universal rights of all native peoples.
In other words, it all comes down to self-identification. It is ultimately up to Diaspora Jews to make a decision. You are either native to Eretz Yisrael, the ancestral homeland of the people you are part of, to which your people’s language, customs, and traditions are indigenous and to which your people aspired and sacrificed to return for thousands of years; or you are indigenous to the place in which you were born in only because Assyrian, Babylonian, and Roman imperialists invaded your people’s homeland some centuries back. You are either part of a Semitic people, a proud and ancient Middle Eastern nation with a rich treasured past and a collective meaningful future, or you choose to willingly give in to subtle Western social constructs pressuring you to discard your people’s authentic self-definition and identify as white people, part of the Euro-Western nations, history and ethos with the only thing distinguishing you being some kind of different “religion.” I know where I stand.
A new Congressional bill will seek to battle efforts to boycott Israel by linking rejection of BDS to a trade agreement being negotiated with the European Union, the largest free trade deal in history.Church of England Bans Anti-Zionist Vicar From Speaking, Writing on Middle East Issues
The Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act, which will be officially submitted Tuesday afternoon in Washington, enjoys bipartisan sponsorship which backers hope will help it advance quickly through Congress.
Representatives Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) co-sponsored the bipartisan legislation, which they say will “leverage ongoing trade negotiations to discourage prospective US trade partners from engaging in economic discrimination against Israel.”
The bill, which has been worked on for over six months, does not authorize any sort of federal response to domestic BDS initiatives, but rather would use free trade negotiations to discourage foreign and international institutions from supporting initiatives to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel.
In an encouraging sign that the Anglican Church is starting to recognize the intimate relationship between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, a rabidly anti-Israel Church of England vicar has been ordered to stop speaking and writing about the Middle East or risk losing his job.
Dr. Stephen Sizer, the vicar of Christ Church in Virginia Water, located in the affluent southern region of Surrey, has a long track record of offensive, often antisemitic statements about Israel. As recently as last October, Sizer traveled to Iran for a conference that brought together Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists from around the world. While in Tehran, Sizer ominously declared, “Those who criticize this kind of conference must think very carefully of the consequences of their words for Jews and Christians in countries like Iran.”
Because of these and similar statements, Sizer signed a reconciliation agreement in 2012 with the Board of Deputies of British Jews in which he undertook to have his online activism moderated. But last month, Sizer took to Facebook to promote an article entitled “9/11: Israel did it” and reportedly wrote: “Is this antisemitic? It raises so many questions.”
As a direct consequence, Sizer’s immediate superior, the Rt Revd Andrew Watson, Bishop of Guildford, announced today that he had given the vicar an ultimatum: stop your activism over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or lose your parish.
Steven Sotloff and James Foley Honored With Daniel Pearl Award
James Foley and Steven Sotloff, two American journalists murdered by ISIS in 2014, were awarded the Daniel Pearl Award by the Anti-Defamation League on Friday. The award is named in honor of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was abducted and killed by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002.UNESCO head reiterates veto of Palestine poster collection
Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley, and Shirley and Arthur Sotloff, the parents of Steven Sotloff, accepted the awards on behalf of their sons. Sotloff, who held dual American-Israeli citizenship, was kidnapped in Syria while freelancing for Time magazine and other publications. He was raised in Miami’s Jewish community and later went to college in Israel.
“Though an ardent believer in and observer of his faith, Steven nevertheless held that all religions are equal in their claim to God and salvation,” Shirley Sotloff said. “One reason he chose the Middle East was to better understand Islam. He disliked the distorted view of the religion presented by our media. Steven always believed the best way to learn about something was to see it up close.”
ISIS murdered Foley, a photojournalist, in late August after holding him hostage for nearly two years. “Jim and Steven were both very courageous journalists, like Daniel Pearl,” Diane Foley said. “They are our heroes, they are my heroes, and I thank you all for recognizing their sacrifice.”
A controversial collection of Palestine-themed posters will not be included in UNESCO’s register of world heritage due to their hateful nature, the head of the organization reiterated Monday. She rejected reports that suggested the collection might yet be approved if the curators make some revisions.Plaintiffs conclude: Evidence proves Palestinian Authority ‘erased entire families’
“I don’t think that by changing one or two posters the issue will be settled,” the association’s director general, Irina Bokova, told The Times of Israel in a telephone interview Monday. “I think this is wrong and UNESCO should not be behind it.”
While, technically, the collection has not yet been formally rejected by UNESCO, Bokova vowed to make sure this will happen eventually; she rejects not only individual posters, but the collection’s entire “approach.”
On Wednesday, The Times of Israel reported that Bokova had decided to veto the inclusion of the Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.
The plaintiffs in the historic, first-ever US terrorism trial against the Palestinian Authority concluded presenting their evidence on Friday, saying they had proved that the PA “erased entire families and left a river of blood and fear.”Head of PA’s 'CIA' testifies in US terror trial: We fought Hamas, not involved in terror
The PA began presenting its defense Monday in the wrongful death civil damages case, which could carry a billion-dollar price tag.
While the plaintiffs’ case, with some highly graphic and emotional moments, has lasted around a month, some central points have crystallized in framing the narrative.
They said that the convicted terrorists, many convicted in Israel’s military West Bank courts, continue to get salaries and stipends from the PA, despite the fact that they are sitting in Israeli jails for murder, attempted murder and membership in terrorist organizations.
Next, they presented evidence that these convicted terrorists receive regular promotions in rank from the PA throughout their incarceration.
In addition, they brought evidence that the PA pays “martyr” payments to the families of suicide bombers and other terrorists who are killed in terrorist attacks.
The first witness for the Palestinian Authority, in the opening of its defense against the first-ever terrorism trial against it, took the stand Monday on an icy day in downtown Manhattan.Douglas Murray: Freedom of speech is a sacred British value (and those who disagree can hop it)
Maj.-Gen. Majid Faraj, head of the PA’s General Intelligence Service, which was characterized for the jury as “the Palestinian CIA,” described his principal job during the second intifada as promoting stability and combating violence and terrorism.
The plaintiffs, represented by Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center and Kent Yalowitz of Arnold & Porter, have argued that many PA employees, including numerous policemen and commanders, have been arrested and convicted by Israel as having organized, planned and perpetrated suicide bombings and shootings against Americans in Israel, including the six attacks in the case, from 2001-2004, during the second intifada.
The case could carry a billion dollar price tag and stinging diplomatic complications for the PA, if it loses.
PA defense lawyer Mark Rochon laid out a series of questions designed to distance Faraj’s work for the PA, and the PA itself, from the PLO and Fatah, with Faraj saying his work was directed neither by the PLO nor by Fatah and that they were “political factions,” which he had “nothing to do with.”
The larger failing, however, has been the political one. Because even after more than two and a half decades, Britain still has not seen a mainstream political leader willing to explain the situation to people like those gathered outside Downing Street yesterday. Britain flunked the Satanic Verses affair, with politicians of left and right using the opportunity to satisfy their personal animosities against Salman Rushdie (some papers and politicians are still doing so now) and suck up to communal representatives rather than draw a clear line and explain what British traditions were and are. For instance the former Tory home secretary Michael Howard helped nurture the problem for another generation thanks to his bright idea of helping to set up and then governmentally endorse communal Muslim groups in the wake of the Rushdie affair.Belgian teacher to Jewish student: ‘We should put you all on freight wagons’
It could have gone so much better if at any point since 1989 a political leader of any party had found the guts to say, ‘These are the rules here, and these are our traditions. If you don’t like them then hop it.’ But no one has. And that is why, in 2015, Britain has learnt nothing and progressed nowhere on all this.
A Brussels high school teacher was summoned to appear before a local school board for telling a Jewish student, “We should put you all on freight wagons.”Teacher quits French Muslim school, citing anti-Semitism
The incident occurred at the Belgian capital’s Emile Jacqmain school and involved a 16-year-old female student and her mathematics teacher, the La Derniere Heure magazine reported Friday.
The teacher, who was not identified, was summoned to appear before the board following a complaint filed against him for inciting racism and anti-Semitic hatred. The student, according to the report, told the teacher that “one does not joke about such subjects.”
A teacher who taught at a French private high school for Muslims resigned because of rampant anti-Semitism and radicalism among his pupils.Irish School Grovels for 'Subjecting' Muslim Student to Charlie Hebdo
Soufiane Zitouni, a former teacher of philosophy at the Averroes high school in the city of Lille in northern France, revealed his reasons for quitting five months after beginning to teach there in a letter he sent to Liberation, which the French daily published on Friday.
One pupil, he wrote, “one day had the nerve to tell me: ‘The Jewish race is cursed by Allah, many Muslims sages told me so.’” Zitouni wrote that anti-Semitic views were commonly expressed by other pupils as well, and that faculty resented his criticisms against radical Islam.
A multi-denominational school in Limerick, Ireland profusely apologized for “subjecting” a Muslim pupil to a copy of the recent Charlie Hebdo magazine cover depicting an image of Muhammad apologizing on it.Wiltshire police officer asked newsagent for Charlie Hebdo buyers' details after Paris attacks
“This picture has caused great insult within the Islam community in Ireland and the world,” said the unnamed mother of the 11-year-old pupil, according to the Irish Times.
The pupil’s classmate brought a copy of the French satirical magazine into school, while the class was having a discussion about the French Revolution and free speech. The cover in question was released a week after Muslim terrorists took the lives of half of the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris.
The school’s chairman, Richard Allen, said it was an “unfortunate incident.” He said that the school respects “all religions and none.” The Times reports that Allen maintained that the school both believes in right to freedom of speech while recognizing that it comes with responsibility.
A police force was forced to apologise today after one of its officers told a newsagent to hand over the names of four people in the name of community cohesion, after they bought a commemorative edition of the Charlie Hebdo magazine.Japan publisher reprints Charlie Hebdo cartoons
Wiltshire police confirmed that it had deleted the names of the buyers from its system, which were collected after officers toured shops warning newsagents to be vigilant during an “assessment of community tensions” in the sleepy market town following the attacks in the French capital in January.
One of the customers, a 77-year-old retired ward sister, described the officer as a “jobsworth” and said that she found the whole situation so unlikely that she thought it was a hoax. “At the time I was a bit miffed,” Anne Keat told The Independent. “I thought that’s a bit rich, two days after I got my copy, haven’t they got better things to do?
“They always talk about the pressure on the resources they have got to put into these things. No wonder they’re short of cash.”
A small Japanese publisher on Tuesday issued 3,000 copies of a book of cartoons by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, including controversial drawings of Muhammed.A month after Paris attacks French Jews are disappointed and disillusioned
“Are You Charlie? Isuramu heito ka fushi ka (Is it satire or hate against Islam)” is an attempt to spark debate in Japan on the nature of free speech, said Akira Kitagawa, the head of Tokyo-based Dai-san Shokan.
About 40 cartoons were reproduced with Japanese language translations, including those mocking the pope, French President Francois Hollande and Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis.
He concedes that Jews who might have considered the possibility of immigrating to Israel have certainly been encouraged to take that step following recent events.Pew Report: European Jewry Shrinking
“The authorities must recreate an atmosphere of security. Jews should be at liberty to leave France and follow the Zionist dream as a personal project, not as a wave. They should not leave France because they are afraid,” he says.
Conversations with Jews in Paris and elsewhere in France reveal that, a month after the Hyper Cacher massacre, surprise and shock are giving way to disappointment and even disillusionment. Many of them think that the Toulouse murders should have been a warning sign to the French nation, and that the awakening now is too little, too late.
“The French nation went out to the streets after the Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher massacres.
Would a million people have gone out to the streets just for the sake of the kosher shop murders? We do not know. The masses did not go out to the streets after Toulouse. They did not go out to the streets after Ilan Halimi,” said Benhaim sadly.
The Jewish population in Europe has declined at an alarming rate, according to a Pew Research Center report released Monday.French Exodus Underway: Record Numbers Attend Aliyah Fairs
1.4 million Jews were estimated to still be living in Europe as of 2010 - just 10% of the world's 14 million Jews.
But that number has decreased significantly since 1939, Pew noted, adding that research from Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Sergio DellaPergola proves a steady decline in European Jewry over seven decades.
There were an 16.6 million Jews worldwide in 1939, just before the Holocaust, he said - and he estimates that 9.5 million, or 57% of world Jewry, lived in Europe. By the end of the Holocaust in 1945, the Jewish population of Europe had shrunk to 3.8 million, or 35% of the world’s 11 million Jews.
A record number of French Jews flocked to "Israel opportunities" fairs throughout France this week, as Israeli officials anticipate an unprecedented wave of French aliyah to only increase in 2015.Suspect arrested for anti-Semitic graffiti in Paris
Some 8,000 people, mostly between the ages of 16 and 35, have visited the "Orient-a-Sion" fairs taking place in Paris, Lyon and Marseilles - well over 1% of the entire French Jewish community.
The fairs, which were jointly organized by The Jewish Agency for Israel and the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption, aim to expose French Jews to the range of opportunities available to them in Israel, as well as to "Israel experience" programs offered by Masa Israel Journey, a joint initiative of The Jewish Agency and the Government of Israel.
Dozens of representatives from Israeli organizations and government bodies, including the mayors of several Israeli cities, presented families in attendance with housing options, employment opportunities, and educational programs available to them in Israel.
A suspect has been arrested for painting the word “Jew” on at least a dozen cars in a Paris neighborhood.JTA Avoids Mentioning Israellycool In Alan Parsons Story
The man was arrested and taken into police custody Monday night after the graffiti, done in white paint and capital letters, was discovered, according to reports.
There is a sizeable population of Jews living in Paris’ 16th arrondissement, or district. It is not known if the owners of the cars are Jewish. (h/t Bob Knot)
Embedding the tweet highlights JTA’s failure even more. Alan Parsons didn’t just say “Very happy to be in Tel Aviv!”: he linked to a blog post about the story on the leading blog that covers Roger Waters’ repugnant views on Israel.Alan Parsons Continues With Project Perform In Israel
We have written more on Roger Waters at Israellycool than pretty much any other source in the world. So the action of Alan Parsons directly linking to Aussie Dave’s blog post was a much more important part of the story than the six words JTA actually quoted!
It’s rather remarkable that JTA, and those news sites who mindlessly re-ran the story, managed to so completely misquote a tweet limited to 140 characters!
Israellycool IS part of the story because Alan Parsons first act on landing in Israel was to link to Dave’s blog post.
Alan Parson has followed up his big FU to BDSHole Roger Waters with an explanation as to why he will be performing here.Millions of Dollars Donated by Foreign Governments and Foundations to Radical Israeli NGOs, Says Watchdog
"On Sunday, during a meeting with members of a rock community from the Rimon School of Music, he said that he had been approached by different groups asking him not to perform in Israel.
“But I replied that I would come here and perform because I don’t mix music and politics,” he said. “I see music as a superior thing and I will perform wherever I am invited to. I perform for people who enjoy listening to my music.”
More than $27 million of foreign donations flowed into the bank accounts of radical NGOs in Israel during 2012-14, the leading Israeli watchdog monitoring NGO activity disclosed in a new report published today.NGO Monitor: NGO Transparency Law Update: NGO Reports to the Israeli Registrar of Non-Profits, 2012-2014
Of special concern, said NGO Monitor in its report on the financial activities of NGOs as submitted to the Israeli government’s registrar for non-profits, are those organizations “involved in polarizing activity and advocacy in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
These groups, the report said, represent the local arm of the international campaign against Israel, and “are directly or indirectly active in BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns, lawfare, delegitimization, demonization, and lobbying against the state of Israel, including involvement in the Goldstone report, the UN fact-finding commission on the Gaza War (2014- ‘Schabas’ commission), and campaigns concerning the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
Among these organizations are left-wing activist groups like B’Tselem, which campaigns against Israeli policy in the West Bank and which accused the IDF of committing war crimes during the summer 2014 war in Gaza, and Breaking the Silence, a small group of former IDF officers who present themselves as lifting the veil on the true nature of Israel’s military actions.
Some of these groups are openly anti-Zionist and advocate the elimination of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state. Of special note here is Zochrot, an Israeli- NGO that advocates for the return of Palestinian refugees and the dismantling of Israel, which received over $250,000 between 2012-14 from taxpayer-funded humanitarian foundations and organizations from Germany, Belgium, Ireland and Finland.
Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receive foreign government funding via two primary channels: direct funding from government-controlled bodies and indirect funding from government-funded third-parties (foundations and humanitarian, development, and religious NGOs) that channel funds to local NGOs.No, Sky News did NOT apologise for suggesting that Israel may provoke anti-Semitism
The Israeli “Law on Disclosure Requirements For [Groups] Supported by a Foreign Governmental Body” (NGO Transparency Law - February 2011) provides an appropriate and timely framework to inform the Israeli public about foreign government involvement in Israeli political issues. As implemented by the Israeli Ministry of Justice, the law is an international model for transparency.
After the segment aired, quite a few angry viewers contacted Sky News to protest the insidious suggestion that Israel may be responsible for antisemitism in cities like London, Paris and Brussels, as well as the network’s decision to show images of Palestinians in a segment devoted to the Holocaust.Groups pan Jew-free German anti-Semitism forum
Contrary to the headlines used by other media outlets since the row, Sky News has not subsequently apologised. Indeed, one of the viewers who contacted John Ryley (the head of Sky News) gave us permission to publish his email, and the response by Mr. Ryley.
The language used by Ryley mirrors that used by Peter Lowe, Sky News’ managing editor, in response to another angry viewer and, as you’ll see below, Sky News clearly has not apologised for showing the Gaza image, nor for legitimizing the suggestion that Jews may cause antisemitism.
Leading Jewish groups on Tuesday criticized the German government for creating a new commission on anti-Semitism without including a single Jew.Jewish group slams German verdict on synagogue attack
Julius Schoeps from the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies called it “a unique scandal” that the Interior Ministry didn’t include any Jewish scientists or community leaders on the commission it created to fight anti-Semitism and support Jewish life in Germany.
Schoeps announced that his center, in cooperation with the American Jewish Committee and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation against anti-Semitism and racism, would create an alternative commission that would stress the Jewish perspective and include both Jewish and non-Jewish experts.
Wuppertal’s district court on Thursday found the unnamed men of Palestinian origin guilty of attempted serious arson for throwing a molotov cocktail at a synagogue in July, causing 800 euros ($920) damage.Jewish group calls Estonian Holocaust art show a ‘sickening mockery’
The unnamed defendants were handed a suspended sentence of one year and three months in prison. Together with a third, juvenile defendant, they were ordered to perform 200 hours of community work.
Court spokeswoman Carmen Schlosser said the adult defendants had claimed they wanted to draw attention to the conflict in Gaza and had apologized for their actions.
But the American Jewish Committee Berlin said Friday the Wuppertal court’s ruling effectively whitewashed anti-Semitic acts.
Prominent Jewish rights group the Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday condemned an Estonian modern art exhibition for making light of the Holocaust, claims the curator denied.Laughing at the Holocaust in Estonia:Tale of a Travesty
The “My Poland: On Recalling and Forgetting” exhibition in eastern Estonia features eight works of contemporary art — ranging from photography to video to installation — that address the aftermath of World War II in Poland, 70 years on.
One staged video shows a group of naked adults playing tag in the gas chamber of a concentration camp. Another artist restages a photograph from the camp’s 1945 liberation by replacing the survivors with random smiling people.
“While the exhibition attempts to deal with trauma through humor, the result is a sickening mockery of the mass murder of European Jewry and the important ongoing efforts to commemorate the victims’ memory and impart the lessons of the Holocaust,” Efraim Zuroff, director of the Center’s Jerusalem office, said in a statement.
On February 7th, 2015, a peculiar exhibition opened at the Tartu Art Museum in Estonia, entitled: My Poland: Remembering and Forgetting. The exhibition, set to last until the end of March, is declared by the organisers to be a "Commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps and the end of the Second World War". The exhibition was supported and financed by the Estonian Culture Fund and the Estonian Ministry of Culture.Urban Outfitters Selling Holocaust Themed Item...Again
Other insulting works - with a capital "I" - depict a classic Los-Angeles landscape with giant letters spelling "HOLOCAUST" in place of HOLLYWOOD; a video where naked people are playing tag against the background of a gas chamber; a video in which an elderly man enters a tattoo salon asking ‘to renew’ his tattoo, the concentration camp’ number on his arm . All exhibits in this outrage are of the same character – boorish, arrogant, intentionally insulting mockery of the Holocaust using the genres of video, photography, comics and the other garbage, produced and curated by humanoids from Poland and Estonia.
I believe that their names should be publicized in connection with their intentional, despicable deed. They are: Zbigniew Libera, Joanna Rajkowska, John Smith (Marko Mäetamm and Kaido Ole), Wilhelm Sasnal, Artur Żmijewski and Yael Bartana. Most of them are Poles, two of them are Estonians, and one, Yael Bartana, is an Israeli living in Berlin and representing Poland in a number of international exhibitions.
The Anti-Defamation League is urging Urban Outfitters to pull a gray and white striped tapestry that is “eerily reminiscent” of uniforms worn by gay prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps.Hitler Youth band drum made of Torah scroll found in Poland
The tapestry is gray and white and has on it a pink upside down triangle.
“Whether intentional or not, this gray and white stripped pattern and pink triangle combination is deeply offensive and should not be mainstreamed into popular culture,” said Abraham Foxman, ADL national director and Holocaust survivor, in a statement.
“We urge Urban Outfitters to immediately remove the product eerily reminiscent of clothing forced upon the victims of the Holocaust from their stores and online,” he added
A drum made out of an ancient Torah scroll and used by the Hitler Youth marching band was discovered recently in Poland and has been purchased by the From the Depths association, which aims to preserve the memory of the Holocaust. As well as committing atrocities against the Jews, the Nazis also desecrated the Jews' holy artifacts in any way they could.Actress Helen Mirren spotlights Nazi-looted art in new film
Two weeks ago one of the association's volunteers from the city of Lodz, Poland, received information about an estate sale at the apartment of an elderly member of the Nazi party who had no heirs. The association's representative was sent to the auction to purchase the unique drum, which was paid for in part by the Levkovich family in memory of relatives who perished in the Holocaust.
The drum was delivered to From the Depths chairman Johnny Daniels, who was dumbfounded by the rare finding.
"Once I saw the drum, I broke into tears," Daniels said to Israel Hayom.
Actress Helen Mirren said on Monday that her portrayal of a Jewish woman's struggle to get back paintings confiscated when her ancestors fled Austria to escape Nazi rule throws a spotlight on the slow pace of restitution of looted Jewish property.East Ukraine Jews to get $650,000 in emergency funding
In "Woman in Gold," being shown at the Berlin International Film Festival, Mirren plays the late Maria Altmann, who went to the U.S. Supreme Court in her ultimately successful battle to get the Austrian government to turn over valuable paintings by Gustav Klimt.
Among them was Klimt's 1907 portrait of Altmann's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, from his "golden phase," which gives the film its title. The painting was reportedly sold in 2006 to cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder for $135 million, at the time the highest price ever paid for a painting.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews pledged $650,000 in emergency funding for Jews in the battle zones of eastern Ukraine.Melissa Rivers Tearfully Accepts Posthumous Grammy for Joan Rivers
The emergency funding will provide Jews from cities such as Donetsk and Mariupol, who are caught in the crossfire between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists, with medicine, food, housing and security, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, IFJC founder and president, said on Sunday in a statement to JTA announcing the extra funds.
“We will do everything in our power and means so no Jew will be left homeless or starved,” he wrote. The sum will ensure thousands of food and medicine packages, as well as three months of operating soup kitchens and providing security for Jewish synagogues and institutions in Donetsk, Lugansk and Mariupol.
Typical Joan Rivers not to go quietly. The late comedian received a posthumous Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for the recording of her final memoir, Diary of a Mad Diva. The award was presented during the non-televised portion of the show, and daughter Melissa tearfully accepted on her mother's behalf, but her speech was not without a few laughs.Remembering Holocaust Historian Sir Martin Gilbert and His ‘Two Londons’
"My mother would be absolutely thrilled to be here. She loved getting anything, and if she thought she could get something at a Waffle House in Secaucus she would be there," joked Melissa. "Honestly, my mother winning a Grammy isn't that far-fetched because she felt that comedy was music. There was a rhythm, but instead of notes there were words, and just like any of the great musicians who are here tonight, she loved to play."
After thanking Joan's publisher and editor and a few other important peeps, a teary Melissa singled out Team Rivers for having kept her going for the past five months. But we're sure she made Joan proud when she ended her speech on a funny note: "If my mother was here tonight, she would not only be honored and thrilled to be holding her first Grammy, she would most likely have it copied and have it on the air on QVC by 11. So, I gotta go."
Sir Martin Gilbert, who just passed away at the age of 78, was one of the world’s eminent historians and quite likely the leading chronicler of the worst human catastrophe we have ever seen. The official biographer of Winston Churchill and author of some 88 books, many of them on the two World Wars and Jewish history, he had been knighted in 1995 for “services to British history and international relations.” His epic work, “The Holocaust—A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War,” a book of almost 1,000 pages that I read and reread and marked up with highlighter and post-it notes ad infinitum, was what finally moved me from the research phase into the actual writing of my own book. The only other book of history that had such an effect on me was probably William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.”
I had the pleasure of meeting Sir Martin on three occasions, the first time at the university in London. He said that he lived in two Londons—London, England, and London, Ontario, where he was a guest lecturer. There we were, along with his wife Esther, sitting in a university cafeteria, surrounded by a throng of students who didn’t seem to know him from Adam. I told him about my premise—a novel set in the near future about a 100-year-old Holocaust survivor who is caught in a world that is woefully ignorant of the past century.
Did he think it far-fetched? No, not at all. And then he offered me this tidbit: “Why don’t you have an event in the year 2030 that would eclipse the Holocaust?”
Hmm. What a thought. And that’s exactly what I did.
