Monday, April 13, 2015
Why Hasbara is Necessary
The director of CAMERA's Washington office, Eric Rozenman, has written a prescient article, "The Theory and Practice of Hasbara" that was published by the Jewish Policy Center in inFocus magazine. Rozenman emphasizes the important role played by Hasbara not only in countering immediate misinformation but in reversing the pervasive influence of the Palestinian narrative that portrays "Zionists as imperialists, Jews as colonialists, and Palestinian Arabs as oppressed, indigenous people."Columbia Prof. Who Says Zionists Supported Nazis Speaks at Cornell: Israel Has No Right to be Jewish State
Rozenman recounts that in September 2000, when the Second Intifada broke out, the Israeli government's media arm was caught flatfooted. Nothing exemplified this more than the Mohammed al-Dura affair. This was the incident where a Palestinian boy was caught on video tape pinned against a wall with his father during a gunfight between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian terrorists and allegedly shot and killed by Israeli fire.
According to Rozenman,
Images of the "martyred" youngster, Mohammed al-Dura, traveled across the globe. They turned up as partial, implicit justification in an al-Qaeda montage of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York City's World Trade Center, in images of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's beheading and in mass marches in European cities that featured "Down with Israel" and "Death to the Jews" banners.
Much later, after independent examinations cast doubt on the French television account and even whether al-Dura had been present during the firefight, an IDF re-enactment concluded that if any bullets struck the child and his father, they quite likely had been fired by Palestinian gunmen. This was far too late.
Since then, Israel has taken significant steps to improve its response to opposing propaganda. Rozenman describes the "nearly real-time checks instead of indefinite 'we'll get back to you' handling of press queries" and rapid web postings along with utilization of social media releases and battlefield video showing the IDF calling off attacks when civilians were present. In this way anti-Israel charges ranging from exaggerations to inventions were not allowed to "take on lives of their own" in the media.
Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad, a controversial speaker who in the past has written and spoken about alleged Zionist-Nazi collaboration and the “Anglo-American gay agenda,” delivered a speech at Cornell claiming Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state, and recognizing it as such is equivalent to recognizing Israel as a “racist state.”IsraellyCool: BDS Blumen Fail
In fact, this claim is a step back from Massad’s previously quoted contention in a 2002 speech at Oxford University that Israel has no right whatsoever to exist: “The Jews are not a nation… The Jewish state is a racist state that does not have a right to exist.”
Massad concluded his speech by remarking: “It is the end of the Zionist colonial adventure, especially the removal of all the racist, legal, and institutional structures that Israel has erected, that is the precondition for lasting… justice and peace for all the inhabitants of Palestine and Israel.”
Massad, a professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History, spoke on Wednesday evening to a crowd of about 35 for an event entitled “Palestinians and the Dilemmas of Solidarity: Is the Two-State Solution Viable?” Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) sponsored the event.
Max Blumenthal – the notorious Israel hater, Hamas supporter, toilet stall aficionado, and alcohol smuggler – is an advocate for BDS.
But in his case, it is easier said than done. For Max has created his personal website using Wix.
Made. In. Israel.
Perhaps he got a recommendation for it from fellow BDSholes Code Pink?
Either way, looks like Max found something else to fail at.
Edgar Davidson: Which British Political Party is the most anti-semitic?
In response to claims before the European elections in 2014 that Jewish voters must not vote for UKIP since it was 'antisemitic' I produced a summary of the extent to which antisemitism is rampant in all the main stream parties (and note that I consider anti-Zionism as an example of antisemitism) awarding a number of Arafats (rather than stars) to each (where 5 Arafats is the worse possible). Here is an update of that summary.How the Haters Handed Defeat to Students at Stanford
The Labour Party
- Forced its own leader and PM Tony Blair out of office because he supported Israel's right to defend itself against Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists in 2006.
- Their mayoral candidate was none other than Ken Livingstone the country's bestknown antisemite, anti-Israel, pro-Jihad politician.
- Represented in the House of Lords by Lord Ahmed who (having being jailed for 12 weeks for dangerous driving when he admitted sending texts before his Jaguar ploughed into a stationary car on the M1, killing its driver) remarked that the prison sentence he received was
"due to pressure that had been placed on the courts by .. Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels". He added: "My case became more critical because I went to Gaza to support Palestinians", something that these Jews "opposed".
SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party)
This party's attitude to Israel is even worse than the Greens. Its leader Nicola Sturgeon is a fanatical Israel hater who has been happy to share speaking platforms not just with Hamas members and supporters but also with open antisemites. To give a feel for its policies, in 2011 the SNP-led West Dunbartonshire Council banned all Israeli books from its libraries.
One of the most prestigious universities in the United States recently fell victim to anti-Israel madness. How did it happen? And how can it be prevented on other campuses?Honest Reporting: Echoes of UCLA Discrimination Alleged at Stanford
Pro-Israel students at Stanford mounted a hard-fought campaign against divestment, from talking to Senators to publishing op-eds to leading counter-protests. Unfortunately, this was not enough to defeat the divestment bill. Pro-Israel organizations and students elsewhere should learn from our mistakes. Here are several recommended strategies:
1. Show up early. Pro-Israel students need to show that they care and are not complacent about this issue.
2. Lobby student senators, but don’t take them at their word. They may be student politicians, but they are politicians all the same.
3. Coordinate speakers and speeches so as not to waste time on weak or unimportant points.
4. Prepare for proponents of a pro-divestment resolution to distance the proposal from the BDS movement itself.
5. Expect a somewhat farcical proceeding, but do not react emotionally.
6. Seek professional support for preparing talking points, speeches, and overall strategy.
The best way to defeat divestment, however, is to vote for pro-Israel students. Very few Stanford students tend to vote for student government, and it is likely the same at other schools. Aggressive campaigns—perhaps supported by professional pro-Israel organizations—to get out the vote in favor of anti-divestment candidates are an absolute necessity. Had we been able to get one or two more pro-Israel students on the senate, divestment would not have passed. Put simply, the best way to defeat the BDS movement on campus is to make sure it never has a chance in the first place.
According to The Stanford Review, student senate candidate Molly Horwitz, who identifies as “a proud South American and as a Jew,” sought an endorsement from a powerful student organization. During her interview with the group, Horwitz says she was asked, “Given your strong Jewish identity, how would you vote on divestment?”Sydney University to act on BDS melee activists.
The group is entitled to ask about how a candidate plans to vote on issues, including divestment. But tying the question to a students ethnicity is a form of discrimination that has no place in campus politics.
According to the report, Stanford is looking into the incident, telling Horwitz in an email that it “does seem problematic.” The students involved in the interview did not respond to inquiries from the paper before publication.
Left Protests at Idan Reichel's NY Performance - I Kid You Not
As reported by Ean Higgins in The Australian today:
Sydney University administrators are expected this week to send out “show cause” letters to some of the individuals involved in a melee last month where pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted an address by retired British Colonel Kemp.
The move comes amid rising tension on campus between students and academics who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, and Jewish students who say the campaign is fuelling anti-Semitic sentiment.It’s not just this that’s fuelling the anti-Israel/antisemitic sentiment, it’s been going on for years thanks to the influence of Leftist academics and staff in general
On the evening of April 12th, on Manhattan’s upper West Side, the usual anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian groups such as Adalah-NY, the BDS National Committee, and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel protested the performance of an Israeli musician.Tom Trento Reveals Norquist Role in Pro-Hamas Rally
All twelve of them came, wearing jeans and survivalist vests and looking very Downtown, very Brooklyn. They had a sound system which blared anti-Israel, angry “black”-style rap hate music. Most were white leftists; two were visibly Arab-looking. At least 70% of the protestors were, I am sorry to say, white women. One identified herself as a Jew.
I asked for a brochure. It read: “What kind of musician is an ambassador for apartheid? Serenades soldiers who destroy homes, lives, and land? Feels happy with a state characterized by racism, violence, and land theft?”
My friends--welcome to Upside-Down Land.
The musician these groups tried to boycott is none other than Idan Reichel, one of Israel’s most popular musicians, and the one most responsible for introducing black and “ethnic” (including Ethiopian, Yemenite, Arab, and Sudanese) music into Israel, and for supporting it globally. I have been told that Reichel used to wear the longest Rastafarian dreadlocks. He is responsible for fusing electronics, Hebrew texts, Arab, and Ethiopian music; he welcomed non-Jewish refugee musicians, including Cabra Casey, from a refugee camp in Sudan.
A newly discovered document proves that Grover Norquist, top GOP moneyman, sponsored in October 23rd 2000 an anti-Israel pro-HAMAS and pro-Hezbollah rally in front of the White House in Lafayette Park. The rally was run and led by the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist Abdul Rahman al-Amoudi who pleaded guilty to financing terrorism and conspiracy to assassinate then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. Al-Amoudi is currently serving a 23 year sentence in federal prison. Al-Amoudi who is co-founder of the Islamic Institute with Grover Norquist is seen on video in the Oct 23 rally screaming his support for al-Qaeda and Hezbollah both of which are specially designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO)Activists to Protest Outside Israeli Consulate in Toronto
Activists from the Canadian-Palestinian organization Samidoun are planning to hold a demonstration outside the Israeli Consulate in Toronto, in protest against the arrest of Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian Arab parliamentarian who is a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.Spread Hummus, not Hate
Jarrar was arrested on April 2 for what an IDF spokeswoman said was posing "substantial security risks.”
Last August, Jarrar was served an order banning her from her home in Ramallah in Samaria, sending her to Jericho to the east of Jerusalem not far from the Dead Sea.
During the demonstration in Toronto, which will take place this Friday, April 17, at 6:00 p.m. local time, the protesters will demand that Israel release all "political prisoners", a phrase that refers to Palestinian terrorists serving time in Israeli jails.
The Jewish Defense League (JDL) will hold a counter-demonstration from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., in order to allow participants to get home before the start of Shabbat at 7:45 p.m.
Bad news for those who enjoy made in America Sabra Hummus. 30,000 cases of the classic style hummus have been recalled because of possible listeria contamination. To see if your hummus has been subject to recall, you can check the SKU code at the US Food and Drug Administration website, here.Jewish Communal Fund Losing Donors due to Support for New Israel Fund?
Sabra joins Blue Bell creameries, Wegmans Organic Frozen Spinach, and Carnival brand and Kitchen Cravings brand caramel apples all of which have experienced listeria recalls this year.
Anti-Israel activists are taking advantage of the recall to spread their special brand of hate on the Government's Food Safety Facebook page. Its just more of the same petty, small-minded activity we see on social media whenever anything peripherally related to Israel comes up.
Imagine how much nicer the world would be if these "activists" spread hummus instead of hate.
The Jewish Communal Fund (JCF) is the largest Jewish donor advised fund in the United States, managing $1.3 billion in charitable assets for 3,100 funds. They are the charity for the 1% of mega-rich American Jews, whose sole mission is tofacilitate and administer charitable giving on behalf of donors.The United Nations Endangers Women by Doubling Down on Its Disdain for Israel
The JCF has a diverse network of donors that support a wide range of charities. While they give to religious and secular issues, causes that run the gamut from helping children to women to the elderly, they also support The New Israel Fund (NIF), an organization which supports boycotts of Israel, and harms the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) - and that is now creating quite a stir.
While the JCF refused to comment for this article, we have confirmed that at least 3 mega-donors have pulled their funds which are kept at the organization due to the fact that the JCF in 2014 made contributions to the New Israel Fund in excess of $250,000. In the past few years more than 7-figures has been funneled to the NIF – basically helping to support anti-Israel organizations funded by NIF.
During the 59th commission Israel’s representative to the CSW Nelly Shiloh rejected the resolution saying, “This resolution is politically motivated, factually disconnected, and morally flawed. As in previous years, the text before us is cut and pasted with little regard for the facts on the ground. Instead of bringing to light the challenges facing Palestinian women, it gives cover to those who oppress them. Singling out Israel for condemnation, among all the nations of the Middle East – and the nations of the world, is not only unfair. It is absurd.”UN elects Iran to Crime Prevention Commission — and likely to top women’s rights panel
While Shiloh must have done her homework, the CSW clearly did not see (or didn’t care to see) the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report of 2014, which proved the exact opposite context from what their resolution suggested. The report, which demonstrated “relative gaps between women and men across four key areas: health, education, economy, and politics” evaluated 142 countries, comparing how women fare around the world. The report shows a vast gap between men and women in the Middle East… everywhere except for Israel, the only country singled out on the CSW report.
Quite logically, the one who should take responsibility for the treatment of Palestinian women is the Palestinian government. As representative Shiloh declared in Arabic, “Change will come when the Palestinian leadership takes responsibility for its own people, and works to facilitate a better future”.
The suffering of women and minorities in the Middle East is a very serious issue; one that should not undermined to satisfy a political agenda of Israel bashing. Of all organizations, it is disappointing that the UN, which is supposed to promote and advocate for human rights, demonstrates otherwise.
UN Watch condemned the UN for today electing the criminal regime of Iran to its commission on crime prevention, and to two other top committees. UN press release is here.BBC’s ‘Hardtalk’ mainstreams anti-Israel delegitimisation
UN Watch has also learned that Iran is a candidate for the Executive Board of UN Women, the highest world body for women’s rights. The vote, originally scheduled for today, has been postponed to tomorrow. UN Watch condemns Iran’s candidacy because of the regime’s despicable record on women’s rights, as documented in detail at our recent Geneva Summit for Human Rights, and in October at our panel of Iranian dissidents. UN Watch urges the United Nations not to elect a misogynistic regime to oversee women’s rights.
Notably, Badawi makes no attempt to inform her audience of Shehadeh’s activities beyond “author and lawyer”: no mention is made of his record of political activism with organisations such as Al Haq and Palfest, meaning that viewers – in clear breach of BBC editorial guidelines on impartiality – are denied the ability to put his comments into their appropriate context.BBC News report on terror stabbing omits Hamas statement of support
Predictably, Shehadeh uses the platform provided by the BBC to promote the well-worn language and distortions of anti-Israel campaigning. No less predictably, little effort is made by Badawi to counter that propaganda.
Audiences hear mostly unchallenged references to Israelis as ‘colonisers’, promotion of the ‘apartheid’ trope and comparison to South Africa, the claim that “Israel never left Gaza” along with description of the Gaza Strip as a ‘large prison’ and the claim that the Arab-Israeli conflict is “the most important issue in the world today” and “at the core of the problems of the Middle East”. Shehadeh distorts history both actively and by omission with viewers hearing, for example, an account of his father’s post-1967 proposals which is devoid of any mention of the Khartoum Declaration and a euphemistic representation of the 2013/14 round of negotiations which eliminates the Palestinian Authority’s decision to run those talks aground by means of its reconciliation deal with Hamas.
On April 8th the BBC News website ran a report under the typically ‘last-first’ phrased headline “Palestinian killed after stabbing two Israeli soldiers“. Readers can gather that at least part of the information provided in the article was gleaned from the local media:Eulogizing Gunter Grass: Nobel Winner, ex-SS and Anti-Israeli
“The soldiers were members of the Israeli military’s Home Front Command and had been sitting inside an ambulance placed on standby at the Sinjil junction during Passover, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.”
Hence it is notable that the paragraph below from the Ha’aretz report obviously read by the writer of this article was not deemed ‘need to know’ information for BBC audiences.
“Qatar-based Hamas spokesman Husam Bardan said that the group welcomed the stabbing attack, saying that it was a natural response to Israel’s policy of occupation. Bardan said that Israel only understands force and “the language of terror attacks.” He called on the Palestinian Authority to immediately cease security cooperation with Israel and to give freedom to opposition to the occupation in the West Bank.”
Germany's most famous writer, Gunter Grass, best known for his 1959 novel "The Tin Drum" but whose reputation was tarnished by his admission he had served in Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS, died Monday aged 87, his publishers said.Holland's chief rabbi: Being called a dirty Jew is normal these days
The Nobel laureate died in a hospital in the northern city of Luebeck, the Steidl publishing house said on Twitter.
Grass quickly followed his debut and best-known novel "The Tin Drum" with "Cat and Mouse" and "Dog Years," all dealing with the rise of Nazism in his hometown of Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland, reports AFP.
He won a string of international awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999 and continued to publish into his 80s.
Later in life, the novelist, poet, playwright and sculptor, often seen chomping on his pipe and sporting a walrus mustache, courted controversy with an offensive poem that painted Israel as the biggest threat to world peace.
In the prose-poem entitled "What Must Be Said," published in 2012, he maintained that an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities could “wipe out” and “annihilate” its people, adding that Iran's nuclear ambitions were “unproven.”
Addressing a new campaign against anti-Semitism which calls on European gentiles to publicly wear Jewish symbols in solidarity with their Jewish neighbors, Holland’s chief rabbi chose to share his views on the dramatic rise of anti-Jewish hatred he has witnessed.Dutch researchers say new mass grave found at Nazi camp
“Forty years ago when I came to Holland, it never, ever happened that someone would call me in the street a dirty Jew or curse me because I’m Jewish, visibly Jewish. Today it’s normal,” said Rabbi Benjamin Jacobs, the leader of Holland’s substantial Jewish population, numbering 30,000.
“It happened already to me personally,” the rabbi explained, speaking to the European Jewish Association (EJA). “They [anti-Semites] threw things at my windows.
A car drove into me.
But, thank God, the government is protecting me in a very good and friendly way.”
Yet many Dutch Jews feel the effects of a growing tide of anti-Jewish sentiment.
Dutch researchers said Friday they believe they have uncovered a new mass grave at the former Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, almost exactly 70 years after it was liberated.Almost half of Israelis say another Holocaust is possible
The mass grave, measuring 16 by 4.0 meters (52 feet by 13 feet) was pinpointed using ex-inmates’ testimony and is believed to be the final resting place of Dutch Resistance worker Jan Verschure, Dutch television news program Nieuwsuur reported.
The grave was tracked by Verschure’s grandson Paul, who spoke to survivors of the concentration camp where some 70,000 people perished between 1941-45, located in northern Germany’s Lower Saxony region.
“One of them gave me a map on which he marked where my grandfather was buried,” Verschure told Nieuwsuur.
The spot is located at the end of the camp’s former main road and is today just a grassy field.
The annual study, released ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins on the evening of April 15 this year, found that 46 percent of Israelis believe a second Holocaust can happen, five percentage points higher than last year. And a similar number of Israel’s 189,000 Holocaust survivors, or 47%, agree.Special Holocaust Memorial Event: Rabbi and Partisan Warrior
Some 46% of survivors also say that future generations will not remember the Holocaust after they are gone, a spike of nine percentage points from last year’s study. A lower 31% of the general public has the same worry, while half of Israelis under 30, the study found, never knowingly met a Holocaust survivor.
The foundation works to help survivors obtain their benefits from the various bureaucracies charged with aiding them. Just 31% of survivors took full advantage of the benefits available to them under law in 2015, according to the foundation’s figures.
While 189,000 survivors still live in Israel, 40 are dying each day, according to the report. Some 45,000, or nearly a quarter, live in poverty with an income below NIS 3,000 per month, according to National Insurance Institute figures quoted by the foundation.
A special event will be held on Thursday in time for the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, to commemorate Jews who rescued other Jews during the horrific years of the Holocaust.Meet the 1.5 Million Jewish Children Murdered by the Nazis
The event, held by the B'nai B'rith World Center in Jerusalem and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL-JNF), will feature an honor guard of 200 Border Patrol Cadets, and 200 high school students will take part in the ceremony along with Jewish rescuers and survivors.
The ceremony will take place at the Martyr’s Forest “Scroll of Fire” Plaza at 10 a.m.
This years' event will memorialize Rabbi Moshe Shimon Pessach (1869-1955), an outstanding rabbinic and communal figure who served for 63 years as rabbi, and later Chief Rabbi, of Volos, Greece.
Rabbi Pessach – the scion of a long line of towering Sephardic rabbinic figures in Greece – shepherded the Volos Jews community of approximately 1,000 souls, through tumultuous times.
Fiercely loyal to his country and to his community, Rabbi Pessach initiated and orchestrated the rescue of his community during the German occupation with the assistance of the Bishop of Volos Joachim Alexopoulos and other non-Jews - efforts that led to the survival of 74% of the Volos Jews. This was an extraordinary achievement in a country where 85% of the Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
Zeev Portenoy was nine when the Nazis invaded Tuchin, his Ukrainian hometown, in 1941, forcing his family and the other Jews into a ghetto while he went on the run.Hungary: Thousands of Jews March in Memory of Holocaust
For the next four years, he wandered aimlessly around the countryside, pretending to be Ukrainian or Polish just to survive. He knew he was Jewish but just didn't understand why everyone wanted to kill him, writing down his experiences in a song.
"There was this fear that one day they would find me so I kept the song on me," he said. "I put the song inside one of my long boots so that if they caught me and killed me, somebody would find the song."
Now in his 80s, his voice breaks as he sings the words he wrote as a child: "I was still a small lad / when the Nazi beast / took over my life / And took me away from / My parents forever."
He survived the genocide. But 1.5 million other Jewish children did not.
Their stories are the focus of a new exhibition at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, which opened ahead Israel's Holocaust memorial day which starts at sunset on Wednesday, reports AFP.
Thousands of people on Sunday joined Hungary's annual "March of Life" commemorating the Holocaust, as World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder denounced the country's surging far-right Jobbik party as "extremist", AFP reported.2,200 Runners Participate in First International Bible Marathon
Over 10,000 people took part in the march.
In a speech at the end of the procession, Lauder called Jobbik an "extremist party that promotes hate".
Condemning a Jobbik deputy who recently spat on a Holocaust memorial in Budapest, Lauder said the party damaged Hungary's image abroad.
"Jobbik may think they are true Hungarians trying to save Hungary, but Jobbik hurts Hungary," he said, adding, "The Hungarian Jewish community is not going anywhere. We march today to say: We are here. We are alive. And here we will remain.”
Condemning acts of anti-Semitism, Lauder said, “There are statues of shoes along the Danube. They are there as a memorial to the Jewish people who were murdered there. No one has the right to spit in those shoes. No one. In this great city we send one clear message to the entire world: The Hungarian Jewish community is alive and well.”
About 2,200 runners participated in Israel’s first annual Bible Marathon on April 9.Israel ranks third for Hollywood imports
The race is run along the path taken a few thousand years ago when a runner known as the “man from Benjamin” ran from Eben Ezer, site of the modern-day city of Rosh Haayin, to ancient Shiloh to inform Eli the priest that the Israelites had lost the battle with the Philistines and that the enemy had seized the Ark of the Covenant.
According to the story, related in 1 Samuel 4:12-13, “Now a man of Benjamin ran from the battle line and came to Shiloh the same day with his clothes torn and dust on his head. When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road eagerly watching, because his heart was trembling for the ark of God. So the man came to tell it in the city, and all the city cried out.”
While there is no way of knowing precisely where the biblical runner set out, Maccabiah Games founder Yosef Yekutieli measured the approximate distance from Rosh Haayin to Shiloh at 26 miles—the distance of a modern-day marathon.
Israel’s entertainment industry, like every other Israeli industry, understands the limitations of its size.US firm acquires Israeli TV tech pioneer for $60m
That’s why it has concentrated on producing concepts, also called “formats,” for television shows rather than attempting to produce expensive shows indigenously.
These formats are then sold to larger, wealthier countries’ entertainment industries for production.
That’s how, as Forbes reports, Israel has become the third-largest source of American television content, after Britain and Holland.
Three firms “dominate the format business,” the magazine reports: Keshet Media Group, Dori Media and Armoza Formats.
The three alone have sold over 100 shows outside the country – including to France, Brazil and even Muslim countries such as Indonesia.
Israeli video pioneer and Emmy Award-winning firm Orad Hi-Tec is set to be acquired by US video production giant Avid Technology.Kim Kardashian and Kanye West land in Israel
The Israeli video tech firm will join Avid as part of its new Israeli research and development facility, which the US firm is in the midst of setting up. According to Louis Hernandez, Jr, the chairman, president, and CEO of Avid, the acquisition – valued at about $60 million – “further differentiates Avid as the partner with the most comprehensive solution, and accelerates our momentum as we enable our customers to operate more efficiently and profitably.”
Once, TV coverage of sports, concerts, elections, and the like consisted of a couple of anchorpeople sitting behind a desk reading the news, with perhaps a video screen in the background to display footage of the story. Now, viewers are used to seeing pop-up graphics, avatars, 3D images that fly across the screen, and many other video effects.
Reality television star Kim Kardashian and her superstar rapper husband Kanye West landed in Israel on Monday for a long-awaited visit in the Holy Land. The couple was accompanied by their 22-month-old toddler North West.Kim and Kanye come to Israel to baptize daughter North West
The pair landed at Ben-Gurion Airport from Armenia, the first leg of their trip to the region.
The couple had been scheduled to stay at the Waldorf Astoria in Jerusalem, but, according to Channel 2, at the last minute they were taken to another Jerusalem hotel, after their plans to stay at the Waldorf were leaked to the press.
They also hired, among other things, the services of a personal security company that specializes in celebrity visits in Israel.
The couple's representatives made sure to make everyone involved in the plans sign a confidentiality agreement to prevent leaks to the media on their dream vacation.
The pair are planning to visit the Western Wall and other holy sites in Jerusalem. (h/t Yoel)
A few hours after Kim Kardashian and Kanye West arrived in Israel on Monday, the true nature of their visit has been revealed: A baptism for North West, their almost two-year-old daughter. After the ceremony, the two joined Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat for dinner at Jerusalem's Mona resturant.PreOccupied Territory: Kim/Kanye Visit Makes Wall Actually Wail (satire)
While it was previously believed that the famous couple had come to Israel to visit holy sites in Jerusalem, it turns out that they were specifically coming to baptize North at the Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem.
One of the last remnant’s of King Herod’s magnificent Temple structure released an audible cry this morning after being informed that Kanye West and Kim Kardashian intend to visit while in Israel this week, worshipers reported.Gretel Bergmann: Jewish athlete Nazi Germany couldn’t hold down
The Western Wall, built to help retain an augmented, enlarged Temple Mount two thousand years ago as part of a massive renovation project, overheard several tourists discussing the itinerary of the entertainment couple, at which point it began wailing and sobbing for a full twenty minutes. Eyewitnesses reported that the wall, revered by Jews as holy, then continued to occasionally whimper, “Why me, Lord? Why me?” and “When will it end?” over the course of the day.
West, a renowned hip-hop artist, and his wife, Kim Kardashian, of reality television fame, landed today (Monday) in Israel for a tour of various holy sites and famous locations, attracting fans and paparazzi, and displacing, at least temporarily, other celebrities on the homepage of Ynet, the most popular Hebrew news source. The media hullabaloo surrounding the impending arrival at the Wailing Wall of the mega-star couple drove home to the sacred Temple remnant just how far humanity has sunk, and how large the distance remains to redemption from the mire of everything West and Kardashian represent and foster, says Rabbi Gad Facepalm, who has written extensively on issues of materialism and exile.
Her name was deleted from the record books, but now the injustice is over.Recordings from 1975 attack on Savoy Hotel uncovered
The 1936 Berlin Olympics are infamous for the ploy with which Hitler sought to con the world that his country treated all Germans fairly, and famous for the achievements of Jesse Owens – the first athlete to win four gold medals, quashing the vaunted Aryan supremacy.
But another remarkable story emerged from those Games and, with its heroine turning 101 on Sunday, it warrants a reprise.
Gretel Bergmann was a world-class athlete. She excelled at swimming, running, skiing and tennis as a youth and won the German, British and American high jump titles as an adult. But, as she was born in Germany in 1914, her Jewish identity shaped the course of her life: banished from her sports club, sent to Britain to compete, summonsed back by a Berlin government anxious to demonstrate decency, her successes expunged from the record books, banished from Germany’s Olympic team and replaced by an athlete who turned out to be male. [Filmed as Berlin 36 2009]
Bergmann first broke Germany’s high jump record at 16 with a height of 1.51 metres. Hitler’s ascendancy meant she was expelled from her club, so her parents Max Bergmann and Paula Stern – aware that the future for German Jews was grim – enrolled her in an English technical college, where she claimed Britain’s high jump title with a leap of 1.55m.
Audio reels capture the nerve-wrecking hours of negotiations with the terrorists, who held hostages inside the hotel, and the firefight that ensued when the IDF's Sayeret Matkal stormed the hotel.
Forty years after the deadly attack on the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv that resulted in the deaths of eight civilians and three soldiers, audio recordings from the battle with the terrorists were uncovered.
Among those who can be heard in the recordings are the Palestinian terrorists, negotiator Ruby Peled and hostage Kochava Levy, who served as a translator and mediator.
On March 6, 1975 in the late hours of the night, two dinghy boats reached the shores of Tel Aviv and on them were two terrorist units who were sent by Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir, the founder of Fatah also known as Abu Jihad, to carry out a revenge attack for the 1973 Israeli raid on Lebanon, known as Operation Spring of Youth.
The terrorist units were spotted by a police patrol vehicle that happened to pass near the beach. The police officers in the patrol vehicle opened fire on the attackers which led to the explosion of one of the boats which was stocked with weapons.
The terrorists managed to escape the boats and reach the beach. They eventually made their way to the three-story high Savoy Hotel on Geula Street, killed the receptionist, and captured hostages, taking them to the top floor of the building. (h/t Yoel)
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