05/07 Links Pt2: Dodging swastikas and Israel hate, Jordan’s secret Jews; Rivlin salutes aid workers

From Ian:

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Israel’s Haters and Racism in Israel

Suggesting that racism is unique to one group of people is itself racist. Racism is the portrayal of one group of people as inferior or superior to other groups. Saying one group is uniquely racist is to portray them as inferior to other groups of people, which fits the definition of racism.
The Israel hating crew is attempting to hijack an internal Israeli matter in order to boost up their racist agenda. Their agenda doesn’t line up with the Ethiopian-Israeli struggle. Ethiopian-Israelis are proud Israelis. The man who was attacked was wearing an IDF uniform at the time he was attacked. At the demonstration, HaTikvah was sung and Israeli flags were common.
The protesters are not on the side of the Israel hate crew. Israel’s haters support a cause that seeks to destroy the state that Ethiopian-Israelis are (judging by them waving Israeli flags at the protests) are proudly a part of. Israel’s haters support a people which 93% of the population is anti-semitic. Israel’s haters support a group whose own charter calls for the death of all Jews worldwide, including the Ethiopian-Israeli community and Jews of all colors around the world. My message to these people: This is not your fight. Stop trying to sugarcoat your intentions and pretend to sympathize with these people when you support a group that openly advocates a genocide of them all.

Ryan Bellerose: Pro-Israel Advocacy: Out With The Old, In With The New

Effective,modern Israel advocacy is the opposite of what many existing organisations want. It is vibrant, unapologetic, boisterous and in-your-face. It is positive and yet unafraid to attack the other side’s hypocrisy. It is not defensive but rather, proactive. Its music festivals, ethnic food, and aggressive messaging target the emotional switches. Its events aren’t at the JCC but at the centre of campus and downtown in the city, not hidden away and preaching to the 15 Jews and 3 evangelicals in the choir. It is inclusive and builds bridges with other minorities, bridges that for too long were ignored because those communities offered no obvious benefit. Now, university students themselves are building these bridges – often with little or no help from existing organisations. They are, in fact, reanimating and redefining advocacy.
Effective speakers are no longer the slick suit-wearing pyramid scheme prophets, but genuine people who have captivating stories. They might not all sound like they attended Oxford like my friend Kaseem Hafiz,a man who at one point hated Jews so much he was considering how to become a terrorist. His awakening led him to become one of the most outspoken of young pro-Israel advocates. This new breed of pro-Israel advocates have something common with him: they all have engaging stories and are compelling speakers. There are people like Dumisani Washington, a tall African American Christian pastor, an incredible Zionist, who also happens to be an awesome dreadlock-wearing musician. I cannot make up these stories! You have guys like Izzy Ezagui, a good-looking American kid from Miami, who is very well-spoken – and who not so incidentally happens to be an incredible warrior who lost an arm in a mortar attack, rehabbed, and rejoined the army. Izzy, though, didn’t simply rejoin the regular army, but the ISRAELI SPECIAL FORCES, in less than a year (yes, with one arm). The average university student can relate to these guys because of their story alone, even if they may not agree with their politics. There’s Chloe Valdary, a young Black woman whose unapologetic advocacy should be the bellwether for any advocate. Chloe, who attended university in New Orleans, just decided one day she didn’t like seeing so much Jew hate and became a force for change. She started a pro-Israel music festival, and she speaks out against the coopting of the social justice movement by people who do not give a damn about social justice but simply stole the language.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali addresses Anti-Semitism on campus at the Boston premiere of Crossing the Line 2




 Dodging swastikas and Israel hate, Jordan’s secret Jews slip beneath the radar

Jordanian society has a peculiar attitude when it comes to Jews. Walking through Amman, one can find copies of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” translated into Arabic and proudly adorning the windows of bookstores and street newspaper vendors.
For me, looking back at Hitler’s image juxtaposed with a Star of David had a somewhat cathartic effect — it was so open, so public; but meeting and talking to local Jordanians gave me the impression that this was almost a cultural, non-malicious anti-Semitism. A society where the pernicious “al-Yahud,” or Jew, hangs like a dark cloud over the city, but where meeting an individual Jew on the street – a rarity given their paltry number, the transitory nature of their sojourn, and their unwillingness to self-identify — will elicit a curiously friendly, if uneasy reaction.
Unlike in Iraqi, Egyptian or Syrian circles where an aging World War II generation still fondly recalls the Jewish neighbors who were “lost” to Israel in the 50s and 60s following a spate of pogroms, Jordanians have no such reference point. There simply were no Jews historically in the area.
Unlike their cousins over the border, they meet and live “the Jew” vicariously through their local Palestinians – and the image is overwhelmingly negative. A Jew who is an occupier. A Jew who is a baby killer. A Jew who is an obstacle to peace in the region.
I picked up a copy of “Mein Kampf” in Arabic lying beside how-to yoga guides and “50 Shades of Grey” in a trendy Barnes and Noble-style bookstore downtown and approached the affable young man behind the counter. I was on swanky al-Rainbow Street, Amman’s version of Rodeo Drive, bustling with flashy sports cars, overpriced restaurants and high-pitched Arabic sprinkled with American slang. “Does anyone buy this?” I asked, indicating the portrait of Hitler indignantly staring from the front cover beside a large swastika. “Sure,” the storekeeper said, “’Mein Kampf’ is very popular in Jordan. For some people [Hitler] is a role model. Other people are just curious to know about him.” My question seemed to elicit as much of a reaction as a query about a comic book.

Michael Lumish: David Mamet Tells the Left to Go Screw

David Mamet is right to reject the western-left, because the western-left is no friend to the Jewish people and has betrayed its core values.
If the western-left ever actually stood for social justice and human rights, it does so no longer.
Until we wrap our brains around this particular fact, we will have nothing to say, just as most progressive-left Jews who favor Israel basically have nothing to say.
They are mutes who shrug their shoulders, hold up their palms, and wish for the best – that is, when they are not attacking “right-wing” Jews, also known as those of us willing to stand the hell up.

Anti-Semitic, Racist Flier Condemned

An apparent anti-Semitic and racist flier that featured manipulated images of two African-American county executives was distributed Monday evening at a Prince George’s County budget hearing.
The flier, titled “From Baltimore to Jerusalem It’s the Same Game,” invokes several anti-Semitic tropes denigrating U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-District 8), who is not Jewish, and U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is. In bold typeface, the opening statement reads: “In 10 years, Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin sent $1.2 billion of Maryland federal taxpayer money to the apartheid state of Israel to build schools, roads and other infrastructure while saying Maryland doesn’t have the money to help develop our communities.”
On the left side of the page, Cardin, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-District 5) and Van Hollen are depicted standing over Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III and Montgomery County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett, both African-Americans, whose heads were digitally placed on the bodies of dogs.
A speech bubble emerges from Van Hollen’s image, saying, “I thought they’d want millions in school funding for their loyalty, but they sold out their community and Donna Edwards for a few doggy treats.” The accompanying text accuses Baker and Leggett of selling out fellow African-Americans in order “to further their interests.” (h/t Bob Knot)

After Protests, Charlie Hebdo Members Receive Standing Ovation at PEN Gala

Two members of Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, took the stage to a thundering standing ovation at PEN American Center’s literary gala on Tuesday night, capping a 10-day debate over free speech, blasphemy and Islamophobia that started in the cozy heart of the New York literary world and spread to social media and op-ed pages worldwide.
Accepting PEN’s award for “freedom of expression courage,” the magazine’s top editor, Gérard Biard, summed up the publication’s belief in the unfettered right to mock all religions, ideas and belief systems, and leveled a riposte at the Muslim extremists whose attack on Charlie Hebdo in January left 12 people dead.
“Being shocked is part of democratic debate,” said Mr. Biard, who accepted the award with the magazine’s film critic, Jean-Baptiste Thoret. “Being shot is not.”

Keith Gessen Leftsplains Charlie Hebdo

Keith Gessen, co-editor of the left-wing journal n+1 has written an explanation of why he joined more than 200 other writers in protesting the PEN American Center’s decision to honor the courage of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. His misgivings date back to the immediate aftermath of the January shootings in Paris. Amid the general sorrow and anger Gessen had picked up on “an attempt to assimilate the shootings to the ongoing American ‘War on Terror.’” And, after all, “people are endlessly being killed, jailed, and harassed in the name of this war.”
I wonder what tipped Gessen off. It must have been the American president’s bold presence alongside world leaders on the streets of Paris. Or maybe the Obama administration’s swift and outspoken recognition of the shooting as an act of Islamic terrorism? Or its blunt declaration that the terrorists targeted Jewish food shoppers because they were Jewish?
Of course American leaders conspicuously declined to do any of those things. What got to Gessen obviously was that the attack on Charlie Hebdo demonstrated that radical Muslims are at war with the West and the West is, unavoidably, at war with them. Reality came too close to George W. Bush’s characterization of it, and that’s unpleasant. It’s better, no doubt, when one can call one’s president a liar.

Danish intel chief steps down over failure to avert anti-Semitic attack

The head of Denmark’s intelligence agency on Wednesday stepped down as an investigation criticized parts of the police response to February’s deadly twin attacks in Copenhagen.
“After careful consideration, I have agreed with the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice and the National Commissioner of Police that I will now undertake new tasks to develop Danish police,” Jens Madsen of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said in a statement.
His resignation came hours before the publication of a police report that revealed it took almost four hours from the moment gunman Omar El-Hussein shot dead a filmmaker outside a cultural center, until police were deployed outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue, where a Jewish man, Dan Uzan, who was securing a bat mitzvah celebration, was later killed.
“That is too long, it’s obviously not satisfactory. It can’t be explained,” Justice Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press conference.
She declined to comment on whether Madsen was stepping down as a result of the delayed police response, saying only that she “noted” his resignation. He was appointed to the position in January last year.

The Troubling Historical Context of European funded Breaking the Silence

The release of a United Nations [UN] report on the deaths of Gazan civilians in UN shelters during the summer 2014 war between Israel and Hamas has served as the launching pad for another campaign to smear Israel. Breaking the Silence, a group that travels the world undermining Israel's moral standing by presenting alleged testimonies of Israeli soldiers committing unconscionable acts against Palestinian civilians, is saturating news outlets with articles promoting its 240-page report consisting of testimonials alleging Israeli cruelty and reckless disregard for the safety of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Breaking the Silence is funded by a roster of organizations that seek to undermine Israel's moral standing and force it into making concessions that would leave it vulnerable. Among the major donors are the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the European Union, several European Catholic organizations, including the German-based Miseroer and Flemish-based Broederlijk Delen, George Soros's Open Society, and a number of organizations funded by the far-left New Israel Fund. These organizations fund a bevy of groups dedicated to defaming and undermining the Jewish state. A Swiss organization, Pro Victimis claims that its special emphasis is addressing violence against women. But somehow it found 273,000 NIS to donate to Breaking the Silence.
The Norwegian, Flemish and German representations to groups that smear the only sovereign Jewish state is troubling when one recalls the historical context; This is especially so concerning the involvement of Catholic Church affiliated groups. There is a seamy underside to the history of Church dealings with Europe's Jews, involving the enlistment of disaffected Jews who were willing to villify and bear false witness against the Jewish community for self-serving reasons.

BDS Suffers Dual Defeats as Anti-Israel Resolutions Fail at CA Community College, Bowdoin College

The anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement suffered two resounding blows this week, in college campuses across the U.S.
Bowdoin College in Maine defeated on Wednesday a student-wide referendum, sponsored by the institution’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which called for a complete academic and cultural boycott of Israel.
The referendum, in which 1,619 students (85% of Bowdoin’s student body) voted on the issue, ran from May 2 until May 6, and was defeated with a vote of 228 in favor (14% of the student body), 1,444 opposed (71% ) and 247 abstaining (15%).
The referendum was held after the anti-Israel group managed to get 20% of the student body to sign a petition calling for a boycott of Israel.
Law blog Legal Insurrection said the failure of the referendum was a “a particularly crushing blow to the boycott movement, with 150 fewer students voting in favor than signed the petition.”
The blog argued that results reflect the fact “that many students were pressured into signing the Petition and also were misled as to the nature of the boycott.”

Bowdoin College students overwhelmingly reject Israel boycott

All in all, this was a best case scenario for the anti-Israel, anti-Academic Freedom movement on campus. And it failed miserably.
I understand from people involved that once students really found out how damaging the academic boycott would be to academic freedom, the reaction was overwhelmingly negative.
This demonstrates what I have said for years — it is through false and misleading propaganda, often by faculty, that BDS has gained a foothold in academia. At Bowdoin, even a years-long campaign to demonize and dehumanize Israel could not overcome the good sense of the student body who understood that destroying academic freedom for everyone is not the answer to any problem.
Additionally, those opposed to the BDS movement need to do a better job getting out the vote. At Bowdoin, almost everyone participated in the vote. At other places, including at faculty groups, anti-Israel groups are able to take advantage of low turnout to pass resolutions with a small percentage of the overall membership.
In the United States, at least, there is little overall appetite for the boycotters’ agenda — so expose it, refute it, and Get Out The Vote.

IRS Pummeled by Court for Suggesting OK to Discriminate Against Pro-Israel Group

In a highly unusual public thrashing of a government lawyer for the Internal Revenue Service by the second highest U.S. court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, asked: “You don’t really mean that the IRS is free to discriminate against its citizens, do you?”
The judges asked this question several times in several different ways of the Department of Justice lawyer Patricia McLauglin who had the misfortune of representing the IRS in a case filed against it by Z STREET*, a staunchly pro-Israel non-profit organization in a hearing on Monday morning, May 4.
Since August of 2010, the Z STREET case has been languishing in the U.S. court system. Z STREET sued the IRS because it learned from the IRS agent to whom its tax exempt application had been assigned, that its application would take some time to process because “the IRS had to give “special scrutiny to organizations connected to Israel,” and that the applications of such organizations “were sent to a special unit in Washington, D.C. to determine whether its activities contradicted the policies of this Administration,” according to its Complaint.
Z STREET sued the IRS for “viewpoint discrimination,” a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The claim is that the IRS did not provide Z STREET with a fair process, which is what it is now seeking, through this lawsuit.

Sorry, we got it wrong over UKJFF

By Jonathan Levy, chair of the Tricyle Theatre
The Tricycle Theatre made headlines in 2014, at the height of the crisis in Gaza, when it requested that the UK Jewish Film Festival return the £1,400 of funding it received from the Israeli embassy, to be replaced with the same amount from the Tricycle in lieu.
It was the wrong decision to have taken but the intention was for the Tricycle to maintain its political neutrality at a time of great national and international political tension.
When the UKJFF withdrew from the Tricycle in response, many in the Jewish community felt let down by the decision the theatre had taken, believing it to be conducting a cultural boycott and taking an antisemitic stance. Neither were ever intended.
Many saw the Tricycle’s actions as being directly critical of Israel. Very sadly, this alienated part of the Jewish community, with whom the Tricycle has always held a close, long-standing and much-valued relationship. They felt that the decision was out of keeping with what they had come to expect from the Tricycle — both with respect to its core values and its long history of engagement with the community.

Al Jazeera America Ousts CEO as Ex-Employees Reveal Scandals

The troubled Al Jazeera America network ousted its chief executive on Wednesday following a week of management defections and a lawsuit charging an employee with anti-Semitism.
The little-watched news network is replacing its CEO, Ehab Al Shihabi, with veteran news executive Al Anstey. Al Shihabi has run Al Jazeera America since it started two years ago, and Anstey has been the managing director of Al Jazeera English.
Both networks are offshoots of the Al Jazeera cable news network, run out of Qatar.
Al Shihabi sent an email to the staff welcoming Anstey and saying he would remain as chief operating officer.
Al Jazeera’s former senior vice president of newsgathering, Marcy McGinnis, quit this week and told The New York Times that Al Shihabi managed with a culture of fear. The network’s head of human resources and its communications chief resigned last week, and a former employee sued Al Jazeera America, charging that he was fired when he complained about a former colleague’s anti-Semitic and sexist behavior.

Anti-Israel Bias Oozes into USA Today Column, Again

When it comes to Israel, veteran USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham apparently cannot help himself—if he sees an opportunity to disparage the Jewish state, or imagines he does, he takes it.
In “Israel Seems to Irritate USA Today Columnist, Repeatedly” (March 5, 2015) CAMERA spotlighted Wickham’s compulsion—unsupported by evidence—to force the disagreement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama over Iran’s nuclear program through the irrelevant prism of American race relations.
Five years earlier, Wickham seized on an erroneous post by an anti-Israel blogger (“Anatomy of a False Allegation: The Petraeus Controversy,” April 26, 2010, CAMERA) to insinuate that Israel might be ungrateful for U.S. support.
Now, criticizing U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for opposing the Obama administration’s delisting Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, Wickham manages a whopper of a gratuitous anti-Israel dig. According to the columnist, “it is doublespeak for Rubio to say Cuba’s designation should be maintained when, in 2010, he argued against the U.S. allowing the U.N. to discredit Israel. At the time, the U.N. was conducting an investigation of Israel’s deadly effort to stop Turkish ships from breaking its embargo of the Gaza Strip.”
Hard to pack more non-sequiturs, irrelevancies and innuendo into two sentences. Does Wickham mean to imply:
That Israel was, like Cuba, a sponsor of terrorism?

BBC News again amplifies unchallenged Hizballah spin

Significantly, neither in that statement nor anywhere in the rest of the report is any mention made of the highly relevant fact that Hizballah functions as one of Iran’s proxies in Syria – as outlined in this report.
“As the fighting in Syria enters the fifth year, it is evident to all that what is happening is not a local civil rebellion against a tyrannical regime, but a war in which both the Syrian regime and the Syrian opposition are being actively supported by numerous regional and international forces. The most prominent foreign element involved in this war is Iran, which is throwing its entire weight into ensuring the survival of the regime. In addition to providing economic aid, arms, and advice, its support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad includes combat forces – from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), from Hizbullah in Lebanon, and from the Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani Shi’ite militias that are loyal to Iran.”
The BBC report states:
“In a televised address on Tuesday, Mr Nasrallah said cross-border attacks by militants from the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front posed an unacceptable threat to Lebanon’s security and required “radical treatment”.
“The (Lebanese) state is not able to address this issue… so we will proceed with the necessary treatment and assume the responsibility and consequences,” he added.”

Evening Standard Columnist Tweets Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory About London Jewish Editor

A columnist for Britain’s Evening Standard on Wednesday promoted an anti-Jewish conspiracy theory wherein Jewish Chronicle Editor Stephen Pollard controls British Prime Minister David Cameron.
On Twitter, Israeli-born Mira Bar-Hillel described Pollard as “Cameron’s puppetmaster [sic],” adding that she expected “3 in 4 British Jews” to shun Labour Party leader Ed Miliband in the country’s upcoming general elections.
Bar-Hillel made the comments after Jewish Chronicle staff writer Marcus Dysch interviewed Cameron on Tuesday.
Dysch reported that Cameron had relayed concerns about the Labour Party drawing equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
Pollard, who is Jewish, responded to Bar-Hillel’s comments on Wednesday by calling her an “unapologetic antisemite [who] trots out the Jewish puppet master line.” He also wrote on Twitter, “If you ever wondered just how deranged modern antisemitism can be, try this,” sarcastically adding, “Apparently I control the PM!”

Anti-Semitism in Argentina

Now, in what appears to be an attempt by the Fernández government to discredit Nisman, who was Jewish, and to shift media attention away from her government’s corruption, she and Timerman have lashed out against Argentina’s Jews, US financiers and right-wing American politicians “owned” by Jewish interests, as well as the CIA and the Mossad.
In tweets and a long blog post, Fernández summed up an article penned by Jorge Elbaum, a former executive-director of the Delegation of Argentinean Israelite Associations (DAIA) and a present Fernández ally, that the pro-government daily Página/12 published around the time of De Luca’s decision.
Titled “Vultures, Nisman, DAIA, the Money Route,” the article claimed right-wing Jewish “vulture” fund managers who made their fortunes by charging “usurious” interest and to whom Argentina owes millions of dollars, have bought US Republican congressmen to put pressure on Buenos Aires to end all ties with Tehran.
Nisman, who Fernández claimed was an agent of Israeli and right-wing Jewish American interests, was said to have offered hedge fund money to DAIA so that it would be immune to the government budget cuts expected to be imposed by the Fernández government as punishment for defying it on Iran.
In the latest chapter in this saga, Timerman, who is Jewish and is the son of Jacobo Timerman, a newspaper editor who was kidnapped during the “Dirty War” and later escaped to Israel, publicly resigned as a member of AMIA.

Flemish nationalist leader disowns WWII Nazi collaboration

Right-wing Flanders leader Bart De Wever has disowned Flemish nationalist collaboration with the Nazis in World War II, still a hugely sensitive issue in a sharply divided Belgium.
Allegations of collaboration by Flemish nationalist parties, forerunners of De Wever’s own New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), regularly stoke tensions with Belgium’s French-speaking community in the south which takes pride in its WWII resistance to the Nazis.
“My own grandfather was a member of the VNV (Flemish National League), the nationalist party which collaborated massively,” De Wever told a Holocaust commemoration attended by members of the Jewish community in Antwerp, where he is mayor.
“I want to look at this straight in the eye. This collaboration was a terrible mistake, on all levels,” he said late Wednesday on VRT Flemish public TV.
“This is a dark page in history which Flemish nationalism has to look at squarely and never forget.”
“Nazism and the Shoah were criminal mistakes. Nobody can deny and there is nothing to soften it,” he added.

New film to pay tribute to Munich Olympic massacre

Production has begun on The Foundation for Global Sports Development’s (GSD) first documentary film. The documentary short, tentatively titled “Munich 1972 & Beyond,” is scheduled for release later this fall and will explore the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
Unlike existing accounts of the attack, the new documentary will capture the contemporary story of a unique memorial under construction in Munich — conceived to recognize the courage of the fallen athletes and their families and convey the possibility of reconciliation for all involved.
Producers from GSD, recognized sports psychologist Dr. Steven Ungerleider and GSD President David Ulich, will travel to Israel this week where early production is taking place. Family members of the victims, former Olympians, and Israeli and German statesmen will be interviewed.
Ungerleider and Ulich shaped the idea for the film while participating in the memorial’s architectural competitions in Munich, Germany last fall.

Tunisia beefs up security at Djerba for annual Jewish pilgrimage

Africa's oldest synagogue played host on Wednesday to a religious gathering of hundreds of Jews.
The pilgrimage took place two months after attacks on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia's capital Tunis which left 22 people dead.
There were 500 visitors for the pilgrimage this year, according to Rene Trabelsi, who runs a travel agency in Paris and organises the pilgrimage.
Most of them are French and around a dozen are Tunisians living in Israel.
"Holding the Ghriba pilgrimage is a challenge, a challenge because it's a celebration and people come here to light a candle, make a wish and our wish is clear. We hope we will never have terrorism again, as we saw in Bardo. People have to live as they want," Trabelsi said.
Guarded by armed Tunisian police, Jewish revelers chanted and danced as the three-day pilgrimage began at the El Ghriba synagogue at an island 500km south of Tunis.

While Battling Mylan, Teva Acquires Auspex Pharmaceuticals for $3.2 Billion

Here’s some news from the battle front between two giant generic drugmakers, Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals and Netherlands-based Mylan N.V.:
Teva announced Tuesday the completion of the acquisition of Auspex Pharmaceuticals, through the successful tender offer of $101.00 per share in cash for all of the outstanding shares of Auspex, representing approximately $3.2 billion in enterprise value and approximately $3.5 billion in equity value.
Teva said in a statement the acquisition is expected to enhance its revenue and earnings growth profile and strengthen its “core central nervous system franchise.”
Meanwhile, across the trench lines, being so busy trying to buy Ireland-based drugmaker Perrigo, and fending off Teva’s clumsy attempts at a takeover, Mylan on Tuesday reported disturbingly low profits for the first quarter—a whopping 51 percent drop to $56.6 million, down from $115.9 million a year earlier.

Drake names club for Jewish grandparents

Drake fans know him as the teen heartthrob from “Degrassi: The Next Generation” and the wildly successful rapper credited with introducing the term “YOLO” into youth culture. However, not all are aware that he is also a devoted grandson to his Jewish maternal grandparents, Evelyn and Rueben Sher.
Now the writing is literally on the wall when it comes to Drake’s love for his bubbe and and zaide. The singer has just opened a members-only club named for his grandparents at the Air Canada Center, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors.
The Sher Club, a 370-square-meter space, will be open during all games played at the arena. According to the club’s designer, Ferris Rafauli, it was designed for the “ultimate sports fanatics” like Drake, and is the “ultimate pre- and post-game destination.”
Drake (whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham) was especially close with his bubbe. He “shared a deep bond with his mother’s mom,” according to a piece published by MTV when Sher died in 2012. In fact, Drake has honored his grandmother by including lyrics either about her or addressing her in a number of his songs.

Rivlin ‘salutes’ Israeli aid workers

In a scene straight out of “Good Morning, Vietnam!” President Rivlin went live at the Israel Defense Forces Field Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Thursday afternoon to congratulate the medical staff on work well done.
The commander of the field hospital, Col. Tarif Bader, and Israeli delegation head Col. Yoram Laredo, received the call from the president and decided to broadcast it to the entire Israeli team using the field hospital’s PA system.
“Dear delegation, dear commanders, rescuers – you are the pride of the country, all of you,” Rivlin said. “I follow your impressive work from the moment you landed on Nepal’s shaky ground and I have you in my thoughts with both concern and pride. Your delegation embodies all the state’s universal values – giving, morality, loving every person for their sheer humanity.”
“I hope soon we will see you back home and we can hug each and every one of you warmly. Your work there is our pride as a nation and your actions with those who now need you so dearly is our face as a nation and a state. I salute you, my dear ones,” the president said.
Commander Bader thanked Rivlin for the call.

Clinic in a backpack brings Israeli relief to remote Nepal areas

The entire field clinic for a team of Israeli and Nepali doctors setting up temporary facilities in remote mountain villages across Nepal fits into 10 large orange backpacks and three duffel bags. After porters carry these bags to the top of a mountain, it takes less than half an hour to arrange the bags on the floor of a school and start treating patients.
The medical team from IsraAID, Israel’s humanitarian response nonprofit organization, works in 29 countries and has responded to disasters in Haiti, Japan, and the Philippines, and to the Sierra Leone’s Ebola crisis, among others.
After the devastating earthquake on April 25 in Nepal that killed at least 7,000 people, 10 doctors, nurses, and midwives left their jobs in Israel for two weeks to volunteer in Nepal. Their first mission was to a group of mountain villages known as Thangpaldkap, in the district of Sidhulpalchowk, one of the hardest-hit regions of Nepal.
In those orange backpacks is a wide range of medical items useful for whatever the doctors encounter: painkillers, anesthesia, IV drips, syringes, eye drops, blood pressure cuffs, bandages, stitches, plaster for casts. Even in the crumbling structure of a primary school, they can do small operations with local or full anesthesia.

IsraAID sets up new ER clinic in Nepal

Israel-based humanitarian relief agency IsraAID announced on May 6 that its emergency medical team has opened a temporary field clinic in northeast Nepal, an area that suffered the worst damage from the April 25 earthquake.
The clinic is in the village of Tar, where more than 120 residents lost their lives and 95 percent of the houses collapsed as a result of the strong quake.
The IsraAID team — the first medical delegation to arrive in the area — has so far treated 122 people, including six severe orthopedic cases.
The clinic was established in partnership with Siddi Vinayak Hospital in Kathmandu and Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population.

Israel Steps Up For Nepal