Friday, May 01, 2015
Melanie Phillips: Britain’s nightmare post-election scenario
It never occurs to them that the tsunami of anti-Israel bigotry which has swamped Britain these past 15 years and more has legitimized ever-more brazen expressions of Jew-hatred. On the contrary, people in Britain tend to think that anti-Jew stuff has nothing to do with anti-Israel stuff. Since so many Jews are hostile to Israel or Zionism, they chorus, this can’t possibly be anti-Jew, can it? I suspect that Ed Miliband himself makes precisely this distinction. For the Labor leader, who is himself a Jew, is in effect deeply anti-Israel.Michael Lumish: Progressive-Left Jews and the European Union
Not that he would characterize his position in this way. Indeed, in this week’s Jewish Chronicle he claims once again to be “a strong friend of Israel.”
This even though he damned Israel’s Gaza war last summer as “wrong and unjustifiable.” Since that war was driven entirely by the need to halt the thousands of attacks intended to murder as many Israelis as possible, Miliband was effectively damning Israel for defending itself.
If this is a “strong friend,” you can’t help wonder what an enemy would do. Miliband says he is committed to providing security for Israel. But how can this possibly square with vilifying it for defending itself? Miliband’s position draws upon the systematic lies and distortions deployed in the campaign of delegitimization intended to bring about the end of Israel. In the Gaza war, for example, Israel’s military strikes achieved a far lower ratio of civilian casualties than any other armed force has ever achieved. Yet in the demonology of the Left, Israelis have been vilified as willful child-killers. It is this monstrous libel to which Miliband effectively subscribes.
The universities throughout Europe and the United States have clearly turned against the Jewish State of Israel as they host their annual “Israel Apartheid Week” celebratory hate-fests. Yale University, in fact, recently cancelled the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA) under exceedingly suspicious circumstances. The University of Pennsylvania hosted a BDS conference last year.Andrew Goldman: A civil-rights veteran slams the anti-Israel ‘Jim Crow’ smear
But for whatever reason – reasons which I assume have as much to do with my exceedingly limited powers of persuasion, as much as anything else – I rarely can convince my left-leaning, pro-Israel Jewish friends that it is the left, itself, which has emerged as the greatest threat to the Jewish people in the west today, despite the fact that I, myself, come out of the progressive-left.
The prominent, if not hegemonic, conception of Israel within western-left organizations and venues is the notion that Israel is a racist, imperialist, colonialist, militaristic, apartheid, racist regime. That highly negative and toxic broad-brush represents the (often unspoken) ideological background against which Israel is viewed. The automatic assumption of Jewish guilt and wrong-doing is almost always brought to the conversation as a matter of course.
As I know firsthand, all these outrages were committed by white Americans against black Americans in the old South.
As a lawyer for the Council of Federated Organizations, an umbrella group that brought a wide array of civil-rights groups together, I was in there on the ground during the famous “Freedom Summer” of 1964.
We civil-rights workers triumphed when the landmark Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. As we strove to achieve that goal, we never questioned the right of whites to live in the area, unlike the Palestinian leaders who assert that Jews are an alien presence.
We never threatened to drive the whites of the South into the Mississippi Delta, in marked contrast to the bloodthirsty Arab war cry of “driving the Jews” into the Mediterranean Sea.
We didn’t have the support of entire nations who send money and arms to Palestinians and back terrorist attacks, as Arabs in the territories do today.
For that reason, I can no longer be a bystander as the noble legacy of the civil-rights movement is hijacked by a campaign whose goal is the destruction of Israel.
Whatever Israel’s faults, it offers full equality before the law. A visitor will see Arabs and Jews sitting in the same cafes, studying at the same universities and voting in the same elections. That isn’t the Jim Crow South I remember.
The Judean People's Front: The Many Myths of Jerusalem: Part 4
Leaving aside the fact that the Palestinians have consistently rejected every offer of statehood, consistent refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, and given Abbas's current strategy of engaging in lawfare instead negotiations and paying terrorists instead stopping them, let us make one thing incredibly clear:The Fake Palestinian Video that Cost Over a Thousand Israeli Lives
Holy cities are not and never have been used as political capitals in Islamic history!
Ever since Caliph Ali moved the seat of the Caliphate from Medina to Kufa in 656, holy cities have never been used a capitals in Islamic history. That is why neither Mecca nor Medina is the capital of Saudi Arabia, Karbala is not the capital of Iraq, and none of the dozens of Shiite holy cities in Iran are its capital. This is in stark contrast to the central religious and national role Jerusalem has played for Jews and the State of Israel.
Many Israelis and Jews love to say "Jerusalem isn't holy to the Muslims." This is ridiculous. It's none of our business to determine what is or isn't holy to another religion, just like it is no one else's right to tell us what is holy to Jews. Yes, Jerusalem isn't mentioned once in the Qur'an and it certainly is interesting that Muslims the world over seemed to virtually ignore Jerusalem during the 19 years of Jordanian occupation, but that's for another post.
So the proper response when someone says Jerusalem needs to be divided so Muslims can have half of the Holy City for their capital isn't "they don't really think it's holy," but rather, "Its holy status is completely irrelevant to its political status. Even though Jerusalem may hold religious value to Muslims, this should have no bearing on its political definition because it never has throughout Islamic history."
Remarkably, none of the other camera crews in the Netzarim junction area have any video of the shooting, but they did shoot lots of video of faked events that day. Eventually, Enderlin turned over 18 minutes of the 27 minutes of footage to the Court in the Karsenty trial, and some of this appeared to have been spliced from other events not even in Netzarim. Richard Landes, a history professor at Boston University also studied the Al Dura case for years, and was one of a small number of people to have viewed the original 27 minutes of footage. The description of what the cameraman claims to have seen and filmed and what Landes viewed have almost no overlap.British Jewry’s Islamist Problem
Both Poller and Landes in his writings have emphasized that the Al Dura story is hardly unique in terms of deliberate misreporting or completely fabricating the news concerning Israel and the Palestinians. Landes calls the staged productions- whether on a Gaza beach, or a Lebanese village, “Pallywood.”
Poller spends much of the second half of her book detailing why these second rate fake videos have so much appeal. Israel can’t win and must not win in the eyes of the modern media, almost all of whom are leftist and have bought into the Palestinian narrative of the theft of their land, forced relocation, and brutal occupation by Israel in the territories. Throw in the intimidation of journalists by groups like Hezb’allah and Hamas, and it is clear that to gain access and stay alive, the reporters have to adopt a certain stance and tone. Charles Enderlin was too big to fail in French journalism, so his determination to indict Israel for the Al Dura story, was a safe bet, whatever the actual facts of the case, and he felt confident he never had to look back and adjust his story. Enderlin had throughout his career, been invested in Palestinian suffering and Israeli brutality. Israeli officials, despite their obvious skepticism about the event, for years refused to challenge the official story, sensing that there would be no favorable outcome from doing so. What were the chances the French were going to admit they created a hoax which cost thousands of innocent lives over the next few years? Ne va pas se produire. (Not going to happen.)
In 2013, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Husseini, a passionate Muslim supporter of interreligious dialogue and a tireless advocate for Britain’s Jewish community, was fired from his job at a London Jewish college. Muhammad had made the ultimate mistake within the world of interfaith dialogue: he had criticized its disciples.Tracking illegal Arab construction, one EU-funded house at a time
Sheikh Al-Husseini dared to reveal that senior Jewish community leaders were conducting interfaith dialogue with pro-terror and anti-Semitic Islamist groups, while genuine moderate Muslims were left out in the cold.
The Sheikh is not alone in his concerns. In May 2013, a number of Bangladeshi, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist activists penned a letter to the Jewish community leadership. They asked if,
“Jewish interfaith representatives are talking to the ‘right kind of Muslims’. The ‘wrong kind of Muslims’ are associated with the extremist Jamaat-e-Islami, expressed in the UK through institutions such as the Islamic Foundation, Muslim Council of Britain and the East London Mosque. All three are currently being endorsed by Jewish interfaith involvement.”
Today, with a staff of 10 working from offices at the Sha’ar Binyamin Industrial Zone southeast of Ramallah, Regavim defines its mission as “setting a Zionist agenda for the State of Israel, with an emphasis on the land and its management and preservation.” In practical terms, that means deploying dozens of volunteers to the field and using sophisticated aerial footage to track Arab building violations.European Parliament urged to ‘control’ aid for Palestinians
Most recently, the group has chosen to focus on the European Union and its massive funding of illegal Bedouin construction in areas east of Jerusalem, commonly known as E-1. According to a report published in January titled “Illegal EU building in Adumim Region,” over the past two years the European Union has helped erect hundreds of illegal structures in area C of the West Bank, administratively controlled by Israel, in violation of Israeli building laws.
“One could never imagine that Germany would fund the building of thousands of illegal dwelling places in the suburbs of Paris as a ‘permanent solution’ for the Roma living in France, in complete opposition to the policy and laws of France,” claimed the report’s introduction.
Beyond its genuine concern for the well-being of the poorest Palestinians, the EU is politically motivated to entrench the Jahallin Bedouin on the strategic tracts of land they currently settle in order to maintain Arab contiguity between the northern and southern West Bank, Regavim argued. But the organization takes issue not only with Europe, but also with Israel’s bureaucracy and legal system which allows the situation to continue unabated.
Citing alleged corruption by Palestinian recipients of aid money, the European Parliament’s Israel relations czar urged more conditionality by EU donor states.Defeating European hypocrisy
Fulvio Martusciello, the chairman of the parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Israel, issued the call during a parliamentary debate Wednesday in Strasbourg on EU funding for the Middle East, his office wrote in a statement.
“We are talking million-euro projects that see part of their funds going to individuals who actually shouldn’t receive a single euro,” Martusciello, an Italian delegate for the center-right People’s Party bloc, said. “The money comes from EU taxpayers and we need to exercise tight control on it.”
Martusciello cited a 2013 report by the European Court of Auditors that found the Palestinians had been using European money for years to pay employees in the Gaza Strip, some of whom had not actually worked in seven years.
A few years ago, as I was standing in an expensive Danish supermarket, deciding what fruits and vegetables to buy, a middle-aged couple entered the shop and loudly began debating what they should buy for dinner. Looking around the fruit and vegetable section, the man proclaimed in a pious voice that whatever they were buying, for sure they were not going to support the Israeli avocados on display. He visibly twitched when I demonstratively went over and filled my basket with Israeli avocados, as if my life depended on eating them in huge quantities.Abraham Foxman: Antisemitism on Campus: Old Wine in New Bottles
Many Europeans proudly describe themselves as "political consumers," yet their politics are extremely limited in scope. While nothing on earth makes their blood pressure soar quite so much as encountering Israeli produce in their local supermarket, they happily stuff themselves with Iranian dates and pomegranates, Egyptian carrots and green beans and Turkish cherries and grapes. They dress themselves in cheap clothes produced by overexploited, underpaid children working under slave-like conditions in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and they do not give it a second thought if young women on death row in China sewed their jeans, as long as they get their money's worth. If North Korea produced anything other than grief and nuclear weapons, they would rush to consume its produce, as well.
In a letter to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, 16 of the EU's 28 foreign ministers recently asked her to push forward the process of labeling goods produced in Israeli settlements. "We would like to draw your attention to the letter dated 13th April 2013 sent to your predecessor on EU-wide guidelines on the labeling of settlement produce/products. ... We remain of the view that this is an important step in the full implementation of EU long-standing policy, in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution." Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Malta, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, Croatia, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were all signatories to the letter.
In effect, the attacks on Israel on campus are unleashing inhibitions against expressions of anti-Jewish prejudice and beginning to legitimize attacks on Jews on campus.Indiana General Assembly Becomes 2nd State Legislature to Pass Anti-BDS Bill
While much of this is in a nascent stage, it is important to deal with it now on several levels.
First, greater efforts must be made to generate a more balanced view of Israel and the region among minority students. Some are undoubtedly locked in to their anti-Israel perspective for ideological reasons. But many others are certainly open to hearing a different take on the Middle East. Not one in which Israel is always in the right, but a complicated narrative about competing interest and needs.
Second, it must be made clear that whatever one’s views on the conflict, treating Jews differently is unacceptable and it is what it is, anti-Semitism. University officials must speak out clearly and unequivocally against even the slightest hint of singling Jews out that way.
Third, we must continually assess the status of Jews on campus in a calm and rational way, distinguishing between the real challenges Jewish students face without sending alarm signals which could undermine the normal life on campus that exists for most of them.
Jews in America have made too much progress over the last half-century to cause us to overreact. Still, we cannot afford to be complacent. We have to address these campus issues now before they expand further and spin out of control, truly creating a widespread worrisome atmosphere.
The Indiana General Assembly has become the second-ever state legislature to pass a bill that formally opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Tennessee lawmakers approved a similar measure on April 21.IDF Soldiers tell Chicago Tribune they were heckled by MU Professor
Adopted in a voice vote, the Indiana Senate approved Resolution 74, which “expresses opposition to the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel” BDS movement.
The Senate’s move came after the Indiana House of Representatives unanimously (93-0) passed the anti-BDS House Resolution 59 on April 22. The measure now goes to Indiana Governor Mike Pence for his signature.
The Indiana bill contends that the global spread of anti-Jewish speech and violence “represents an attack, not only on Jews, but on the fundamental principles of the United States.” The resolution goes on to thank the presidents of Indiana University and Purdue University for “strongly” condemning the boycott of Israeli academic institutions after some faculty members and other staffers at those schools voiced support for the BDS movement.
This April, reserve IDF soldiers Hen Mazzig, and Matan Katzman did a two week speaking tour around the Midwest called, “Israeli Soldiers’ Stories.” The tour was sponsored by “StandWithUS,” and included about 10 university presentations as well as a handful of other engagements. On the last stop they spoke in Chicago at a Jewish Community Center. The Chicago Tribune covered the event, as, “a relatively easy one for 25-year-old Hen Mazzig. There was no heckling, no screaming and no one was calling him a murderer.” So, where did this happen on the tour? “Mazzig said a biology professor at the University of Missouri was heckling him from the audience with hostile questions and accusations. “[He said,] ‘Why do you kill Palestinians? How many U.N. schools have you attacked?'” Mazzig was referring to biology professor George Smith, the same man who is going to be teaching a course called, “Perspectives on Zionism” next fall.Anti-Israel UCLA Group Investigated For Corruption
But, that was not Smith’s only comments to Mazzig, “at the end, he (Smith) came to me and said, ‘How can you come here and defend Ashkenazi Jews — white Eastern European Jews — when you are an Arab Jew?’” The reason Mazzig mentioned this comment as so offensive, will probably be lost on people who are unaware of the history of modern Israel. Mazzig is of Iraqi descent. Sometimes, Jewish people from Arab countries are referred to as Arab Jews, which can be confusing. But, in this case it meant Jewish people whose families came from Arab countries to Israel. Without going into detail, there have been some instances of Jewish people from European descent treating Jewish people from Arab countries with discrimination. What the comment implies is that Mazzig should realize how racist Jewish people from European countries have been to Jewish people from Arab countries, then he should keep this hate alive, to the point that he refuses to defend his country.
But that is not all. The other soldier, Matan Katzman wrote a brief description of the MU event. “Prof. Smith interrupted several times during the speech, (he) accused us of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Smith, “asked why we (were) deliberately firing on schools to kill as many civilians and children.” Katzman wrote that he could feel, “the adrenaline in my body,” when Smith accused him. “StandWithUS” shared a video of Katzman responding to Smith, “You can keep on ranting false accusations… I don’t know you… I don’t know if you served in the American Army… But, war is hell… you think I am happy when Palestinians get hurt in schools… It’s almost hard for me to answer you… I am that offended by the fact that you think I want to hurt people… that is completely not true.”
On Tuesday evening, the undergraduate student government at UCLA unanimously voted for the Election Board to investigate charges that the LET’S ACT! Slate used illegal fundraising tactics in numerous campaigns, according to the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s campus newspaper. Documents were released on Monday that seemed to indicate that Let’s Act, a group closely allied with the anti-Israel hate group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), had illegally used money from student fees and sold drugs to fundraise. Slate members admitted that some of the documents were genuine but adamantly refused to admit any illegality.ALERT: Bowdoin College Students May Vote on Israel Academic Boycott
The Undergraduate Students Association Council may not reveal the voting results until next week, as all complaints have not yet been closed. USAC Election Board Chair Shagun Kabra told the Bruin on Thursday that the Judicial Board and the current council are permitted to investigate because the complaints date back to before the current school year. USAC President Avinoam Baral said although the Election Board can only investigate claims from the current year, the Election Board should still investigate any issues from the current year.
Let’s Act endorses and supports SJP and the BDS movement at UCLA, and vehemently opposes Bruins United, a pro-Israel organization.
According to the Bruin, the leaked documents also charge that LET’S ACT! plotted to take control over departments in the Community Programs Office, the office that hosts some student retention and access programs. Two documents expressed hostility toward the Community Programs Office and urged the “overthrow” of its director, Antonio Sandoval.
The Bowdoin College Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) group may obtain sufficient signatures on a Petition to send a referendum endorsing the full academic and cultural boycott of Israel to a vote by the full student body.Rasmea Odeh Prosecutor to get Justice Award
This is not a mere “divestment” resolution. In calling on the full student body to endorse the complete boycott of Israel, the referendum appears to be taking an unpredecented move among college anti-Israel initiatives, which normally are narrowly tailored.
It is a resolution, much like that passed by the American Studies Association, that would cut all academic and cultural ties with all Israeli Universities and any Israeli scholar or student acting on behalf of or through those universities. The ASA boycott was condemned as a violation of academic freedom by over 250 University Presidents (including Bowdoin’s) and several major academic groups, such as the American Association of University Professors.
Whether SJP will obtain sufficient signatures is a matter currently under dispute.
As of last night, SJP was claiming that it reached the required number at the time it closed the Petition.
As we have reported before, Rasmea has been turned into a hero of the anti-Israel activist community, based in large part on her claim that the Israeli conviction was based on a confession extracted after 25 days of sexual torture.PolitiFact: Nation of Islam group says Israeli security trained Baltimore cops
In fact, the documentary evidence shows Rasmea confessed just one day after arrest, was implicated by others as the mastermind, and the conviction was supported by other evidence, such as bomb-making material found in her bedroom.
Nonetheless, the pro-Rasmea propaganda machine continues to churn out the claim that Rasmea is a victim. While out on bond pending appeal, Rasmea is regularly feted as a heroine alongside such notables as Angela Davis (who is a big Rasmea supporter).
It is not surprising, therefore, that the mythology of Rasmea the Victim is being used by activist groups to challenge a Justice Award to U.S. Attorney McQuade by the Michigan-based Arab-American Civil Rights League (ACRL) among other groups.
We’ve seen plenty of claims in recent days about the unrest in Baltimore. One that caught our attention was a tweet from an account associated with the Nation of Islam. It read, "#Baltimore police trained by Israel Mossad & Shin Bet. More planned."UK media largely ignore recent string of Palestinian terror attacks
The Mossad is Israel’s foreign intelligence service and the Shin Bet is its internal counter-intelligence agency. They roughly correspond to the American CIA and FBI.
So, are the Mossad and Shin Bet working with Baltimore police? No.
Nation of Islam researchers included a link in their tweet that sent us to a page on the Baltimore County Police Department website. While county police were called in to assist during the riots, they are not the city police.
The link includes no information or evidence that county police were trained by Mossad and Shin Bet.
What that website says is that county police offered optional training for officers interested in a martial art called Krav Maga (pronounce ma-GAA). Krav Maga does have a strong connection with Israel. It was developed by the Israeli Defense Force in the earliest years of the country’s existence. It emphasizes quick and debilitating counter attacks in one-on-one combat.
The instructor mentioned on the Baltimore County webpage was Jon Pascal, who had spent 15 years with the Los Angeles County Police Department. There is nothing to suggest that Pascal is a Mossad or Shin Bet agent.
Here’s how major UK news sites reported the terror attacks.Swedish teens confront neo-Nazi presence in schools
The Guardian: Only one report devoted to any of the terror attacks – an April 25th Reuters story (Palestinian man killed in incident at Jerusalem checkpoint) on the Palestinian knife attack near Ma’ale Adumim.
The Independent: No reports on any of the terror attacks.
The Telegraph: One report, an April 25th story by Kate Shuttleworth (Palestinians shot dead after Israeli officer stabbed) which briefly covered both the knife attack near Ma’ale Adumim and the car attack at A-Tur.
Times of London (The Times): No report on any of the terror attacks.
Financial Times: No report on any of the terror attacks.
As This Ongoing War observed about the broader failure of the Western media, even those who think of themselves as careful observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would have no idea that these series of Palestinian terror attacks had occurred.
Members of a Swedish youth movement launched an anti-fascist campaign at a high school where neo-Nazis interrupted a lecture by a Holocaust survivor.Center documenting Nazi atrocities opens in Munich
The campaign began last week at the Peders Skrivares high school in the western province of Halland, where on April 22 a group of skinheads demonstratively walked in on a talk given to students by Mietek Grocher, 89, Sveriges Radio reported.
The campaign had members of the SSU youth movement of the center-left Swedish Social Democratic Party set up a booth in the school, located in the city of Varberg, and hold signs reading “Sieg Heil – Hell No.”
At least six neo-Nazis in their 20s entered the room where Grocher was speaking and began taking photos of the listeners. They did not behave violently.
Seventy years after the end of World War II, the German city of Munich on Thursday inaugurated a documentation center on atrocities committed by the Nazis.Ukrainian aliya triples in first quarter of 2015
The new building stands on the site of the former headquarters of the Nazis' National Socialist Party. According to the city of Munich, "The fact that several buildings previously used by the Nazi regime still exist in the immediate neighborhood of the documentation center will play a central role in the center's information and communication concepts."
German officials attending the event included Charlotte Knobloch, head of Munich's Jewish community, and Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter.
"I am convinced that today is an important day for Munich because we are making clear that we are actively dealing with our past as the capital of the [Nazi] movement," Reiter said.
Immigration to Israel under its Law of Return increased in the first quarter of 2015 by 41 percent over the corresponding period last year.200 Gazan farmers tour Tel Aviv Agritech
Approximately a third of the 6,499 newcomers who landed at Ben Gurion Airport in the first three months of 2015 were from Ukraine, and more than half were from the former Soviet Union, according to an interim report by the Jewish Agency for Israel released earlier this month.
Jewish immigration to Israel from Ukraine comprised 1,971 individuals in the first quarter of 2015 compared to 625 in the first three months of 2014 — a 215% leap.
Ukraine’s economy has suffered huge losses and monetary depreciation as a result of a revolution that swept its former president, Viktor Yanukovych, from power and triggered an armed conflict with Russian-backed insurgents, with devastating effects to the country’s industrial heart in the east.
Voicing their desire for more flexibility at IDF checkpoints, increased farming equipment imports and opportunities to export crops, some 200 Gazan farmers came to Tel Aviv on Thursday to engage in a face-to-face dialogue with a senior defense official.Israeli High-Tech Companies Raise Nearly $1 Billion in First Quarter of 2015
“We can overcome this problem,” Esaam Dawwas, quality control manager for the Beit Lahiya Cooperative Association, told The Jerusalem Post, following the discussion. “We need the Israeli government to deal with facilities for farmers, open the checkpoints and send us all the machines for agriculture and fertilizer for the farmers. We can solve this problem.”
Dawwas and his colleagues came to participate in the third and final day of the annual Agritech International Agricultural Exhibition and Conference at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds. They took part in a conversation in Arabic with Col. Grisha Yakubovich, head of the civil department at the Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. Among the key issues to arise were the need to boost agricultural trade allowances, and to increase the availability of supplies crucial to farming.
“What happened here today is actually the fruit of cooperation between us and the Palestinian Authority,” Yakubovich told the Post after the dialogue. “This is not something regular that you see people from Gaza being brought out here in buses. That’s why it was so important for me to talk to them... and listen to the voice from the field.”
Israeli high-tech companies raised nearly $1 billion during the first quarter of 2015, according to the most recent report by IVC Research Center, the Israeli tech website Geektime reported Monday.Torah On The Moon?
According to a recently published report from IVC Research Center, Israel’s leading research group on the country’s high tech companies and venture capital investment, Israel’s first quarter this year was the second most successful quarter for high tech fundraising in a decade, 48% higher than Q1 of 2014 and more than twice what was raised in Q1 of 2013. What’s more, it was only 10% less than the decade’s most successful quarter for high tech fundraising: Q4 of 2014. …
In the last few years, Israeli internet startups such as Waze and Wix have been all the rage, and that trend is not abating any time soon: With $343 million raised, the country’s Internet sector experienced its most successful fundraising quarter ever in Q1. According to Koby Simana, CEO of IVC Research Center, the high funding rounds of Taboola ($117 million) and Quixey ($60 million) largely contributed to this quarter’s success, as well as the maturation of the sector, with investors willing to raise larger average rounds.
French-Israeli businessman Chaim Aouizerate is the driving force behind an initiative called ‘Torah on the Moon’ (TOTM), which he calls a “values-driven” space initiative. The idea is to send an unmanned spacecraft carrying the Torah scroll in a special capsule to protect it during the launch, the flight and the landing.
Those interested in helping fund the project can buy letters and phrases.
Aouizerate stated, “Modernity has brought the significant blessing of technology to humanity. However, with this blessing, comes a loss of respect for the written word. Our goal is to reconnect people of all faiths with their identities, values, and roots by allowing the Torah, the world's oldest code of conduct and law, to take center stage in a way previously thought unimaginable: a one-way, crowd funded trip to the Moon. We hope that this mission will help individuals around the world refocus their lives, moving away from materialism while embracing knowledge, history and spiritual pursuits. To put it in the simplest terms, we are launching a Torah to keep our society grounded.”
Aouizerate and his cohorts have contracted the European Space Agency to analyze the Moon environment and hope the Agency will also help test the scroll’s space capsule. The project has been endorsed by the Zomet Institute, a public research institute run by Orthodox rabbis.
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