Monday, May 11, 2015
Swedish trawler leaves for Gaza in attempt to break naval blockade
A trawler left its port in Sweden to travel some 5,000 nautical miles in order to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.Swedish deputy PM compares migrant crisis to Holocaust, apologizes
The boat, named Marianne of Gothenburg and purchased jointly by Ship to Gaza Sweden and Ship to Gaza Norway, left on its journey on Sunday evening. It is the first ship in the Freedom Flotilla III to leave for Gaza, according to the website of Ship to Gaza Sweden.
The Marianne will stop at ports in Helsingborg, Malmö and Copenhagen, as well as other ports that will be announced later, according to the website.
The boat does not have room for a significant cargo, but will be carrying solar panels and medical equipment, according to the organization.
It is carrying five crew members and eight passengers. Among the passengers are: Israeli-born Swedish citizen Dror Feiler, a musician and spokesperson of Ship to Gaza; Henry Ascher, a professor of Public Health and pediatrician; Lennart Berggren, a filmmaker; Maria Svensson, pro. tem. spokesperson of the Feministiskt initiative; and Mikael Karlsson, chairperson of Ship to Gaza Sweden.
Sweden’s deputy prime minister has apologized for comparing the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean to the horrors of the Holocaust.Swedish expo on WWII White Bus rescue mission made Judenfrei
In a televised party leader debate Sunday, Asa Romson deplored the desperate situation of migrants trying to make the perilous and often deadly crossing to Europe, saying “we are … turning the Mediterranean into the new Auschwitz.”
Critics, including Jewish leaders, called the comparison to the Nazi death camp misguided and offensive. About 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in Auschwitz during World War II.
Romson, who represents the Green Party, apologized Monday on Twitter, saying “It was wrong to make the comparison with Auschwitz.”
An exhibition on Sweden and Denmark’s “White Bus” operation to rescue people from concentration camps at the end of World War Two has been vandalised, officials said Saturday, with the perpetrators cutting out a large chunk of text concerning the Jews who were saved.
“They have consciously cut out the part that concerns the Jews, nothing else was touched,” Reverend Mikael Ringlander, one of the organisers, said of the attack that occurred overnight to Saturday.
“We held a ceremony in the synagogue yesterday. It must have angered someone,” he said, adding the incident has been reported to police
The weekend exhibition in Gothenburg had been staged to mark 70 years since Sweden’s Red Cross together with the Danish government in the spring of 1945 sent hundreds of buses to German-occupied territories to rescue people imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps.
U.N. Watch: Predictable anti-Israel bias
The United Nations' so-called “inquiry” into last summer's fighting in Gaza predictably excoriates Israel for the deaths of 44 Palestinian civilians who sought shelter in seven U.N. schools. Yet the same report confirms that Hamas terrorists stashed weapons in some supposedly “vacant” schools.Gerald Steinberg: Publication of Israeli soldiers' accounts clouded by political agenda
Included with the report's summary was a letter from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the Security Council, “criticizing Israelis for attacking ‘inviolable' facilities of the organization in Gaza where civilians sought refuge,” The New York Times reports. And while Mr. Ban merely wrist-slapped Hamas for using U.N. facilities as rocket depots, the world body is considering whether to press Israel for reparations when it returned fire, according to The Times.
Based on the U.N.'s own findings, not only did children have access to at least one school where rockets were stored, they might have been lured to play there, according to the group U.N. Watch. And never mind the likelihood, as the report also points out, that U.N. facilities were used as sites from which to launch rockets against Israel, constituting “grave violations of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law,” according to U.N. Watch.
So instead of going after Islamofascists for drawing fire to U.N. facilities, Turtle Bay instead targets Israel for defending itself. Once again, the United Nations documents where it loyalty lies — with terrorists.
By not publishing key information, the organisation is expecting readers – in Israel, but primarily abroad, including Australia, to blindly trust it and to suspect no agenda other than the documentation of valid complaints by soldiers. However, as shown by NGO Monitor's systematic research, there are also important financial dimensions. Breaking the Silence receives substantial funding from radical Europeans, who link their donations to the number of statements that are collected. The Dutch church organisation ICCO demanded at least 90 incriminating interviews, while Oxfam (which claims to promote a humanitarian agenda) linked funding directly with the provision of "as many interviews as possible" regarding "immoral activities". These arrangements highlight the clear financial interest in presenting as many negative testimonies as possible.Behind Breaking the Silence: Foreign Funding, Bounty Hunting, and Hypocrisy
Indeed, the failure to examine the motivations and history of the donors to this tiny group is of major importance. These funders are involved in anti-Israel activities from Ireland, Britain and the Netherlands and have actively supported, funded and partnered with organisations promoting boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) targeting the Jewish state. The funders are clearly interested in portraying the actions of IDF soldiers as criminal and callous, thereby hoping to pave the way for prosecutions targeting Israel at the International Criminal Court. This is an extension of the long Arab-Israeli wars by other means.
Of course no army is perfect, and some soldiers may have legitimate complaints. But as in any democratic society, this must be done through legal and administrative processes, and not by garnering headlines in the foreign media. Given the obsession with Israel, the deep hostility, and the large sums that are available, particularly to NGOs that join in this form of modern warfare, consumers of such publications, including journalists and government officials, should exercise caution and a healthy degree of skepticism.
On May 4 the organization which has given itself the courageous moniker of “Breaking the Silence” issued a harshly critical report about the IDF’s performance in last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. It claimed indiscriminate shooting by Israeli soldiers caused the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian Arab civilians.‘Catch the Jew!’ Replete With Diverse People in an Ideological Minefield
In the days following, that report has itself been criticized, debunked, dismantled and discredited. It’s worth understanding why.
The name of the organization issuing the scathing report, “Breaking the Silence,” suggests no one else has been willing to criticize the IDF. In reality, of course, that is the primary global discourse about the IDF.
And it is not as if IDF soldiers are uncritical of their experiences. But most of that criticism is internally directed, with the goal of actually improving conditions and procedures. BtS’s effort, in contrast, is a public relations exercise in demonizing Israel and its military apparatus.
As he travels through Palestinian towns, Tuvia learns that funding for the beautiful homes and Arab cultural centers comes from the European Union (EU), especially Germany. He visits Gerald Steinberg of the NGO Monitor research institute. Of 150 international NGOs operating in Israel, 50 are funded by Germany or German foundations, and all of them are pro-Palestinian. Tuvia wonders why these young Europeans are so dedicated to protecting the Palestinians from Israeli oppression.The Latest Jewish Dilemma on Campus
Tuvia finds his answer as he follows a group of Italian youths touring the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, led by an Israeli named Itamar, “a proud ex-Jew.” The educational trip has been arranged by an Italian institution in Milano and paid for by the EU. Tuvia wonders what these Europeans will think about the “Dead Jews’ Museum.” But Itamar the educator does his best to turn the World War II story into a contemporary one, by making comparisons between then and now—that is, between yesterday’s Nazis and today’s Israelis.
Thanks to their guide, at each exhibit, the Italians see the dead Jews of the camps but hear the name “Palestine.” They watch a film of Nazi officers but hear the name Israel. As Tenenbom puts it, the Europeans are “using Yad Vashem, the monument for millions of Jews slaughtered at their hands, as a platform for poisonous propaganda against the survivors of their butchery.”
“Catch the Jew!” is filled with such realizations, small and large. It is at once a breezily written travelogue and a voyage through the political landscape, spotted with ideological landmines at every step. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about Israel, you’ll meet people you never knew existed and you’ll have fun getting to know them. But beware: in June, Tuvia told JNS.org, he will be starting his research for a new book—about the U.S.
Last month’s student election at Stanford included allegations of anti-Semitism by the Students of Color Coalition against Molly Horwitz – who identifies as Jewish and as a woman of color. The contentious debate that followed has drawn attention to a new dynamic facing Jewish students on college campuses across America.St. George was a Palestinian.
Increasingly, the BDS movement is pitting Jews who support Israel against student groups that represent minority rights on campus.
The twist, as the New York Times reports, is that American Jews have traditionally been at the vanguard of progressive causes, as well as the strongest supporters or Israel.
College activists favoring divestment have cast the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a powerful force’s oppression of a displaced group, and have formed alliances with black, Latino, Asian, Native American, feminist and gay rights organizations on campus. The coalitions — which explicitly link the Palestinian cause to issues like police brutality, immigration and gay rights — have caught many longtime Jewish leaders off guard, particularly because they belonged to such progressive coalitions less than a generation ago.
And with student groups like the progressive and pro-BDS Jewish Voice for Peace emerging on numerous campuses, Jewish students are increasingly forced to choose sides in divestment debates, with Jews on both sides of the aisle.
Islam21C has him born in Cappadocia, a part of modern Turkey, into a noble Christian family in the third century, around 270 CE, some 300 years before the birth of Moḥammad. Whilst Wikipedia has him born in Lydda, Syria Palaestina (Lodd) – 23 April 280 CE.Daniel Pipes: The Middle East is running out of water
Both agree his mother was named Polychronia, a Greek native of Lydda. His father Gerontius was a Greek Christian from Cappadocia and an official in the Roman army.
According to Wikipedia, both parents were Christians from noble families of the Anici, so their son was raised with Christian beliefs. They decided to call him Georgios (Greek), meaning “worker of the land” (i.e., farmer).
So both parents being Greek, where does the Palestinian bit fit in, given that ‘Palestinians’ are Arabs.? That is of course unless they are claiming that all Greeks are now Arabs to.!!
His actions saw him dragged through the streets of ‘Palestine’ and beheaded before Nicomedia’s city wall, on 23 April 303. His body was returned to Lydda for burial, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.
Now we see some similarities here to modern day Gazans.
Sound familiar?
“Dragged through the streets of ‘Palestine’ “
“Martyr”
Now Muslim Village and Islam 21C not only change from calling him Palestinian to being a Turkish-Arab, but likely a believer in tawḥīd too.
A ranking Iranian political figure, Issa Kalantari, recently warned that past mistakes have left Iran with a water supply so insufficient that up to 70%, or 55 million of 78 million, Iranians, could be forced to abandon their native country for parts unknown.Israeli water-tech flows to thirsty California
Many facts buttress Kalantari's apocalyptic prediction: Once lauded in poetry, Lake Urmia, the Middle East's largest lake, has lost 95% of its water since 1996, dropping from 31 to just 1.5 billion cubic meters. What the Seine is to Paris, the Zayanderud was to Isfahan -- except the latter went bone-dry in 2010. Over two-thirds of Iran's cities and towns are "on the verge of a water crisis" that could result in drinking water shortages; already, thousands of villages depend on water tankers. Unprecedented dust storms disrupt economic activity and damage health.
And the Iranians are not alone. Many others in the arid Middle East may also be forced into unwanted, penurious, desperate exile. With one unique, magnificent exception, much of the Middle East is running out of water due to such maladies as population growth, short-sighted dictators, distorted economic incentives, and infrastructure-destroying warfare.
Israel provides the sole exception to this regional tale of woe. It too, as recently as the 1990s, suffered water shortages. But now, thanks to a combination of conservation, recycling, innovative agricultural techniques, and high-tech desalination, the country is awash in water (Israel's Water Authority: "We have all the water we need"). I find it particularly striking that Israel can desalinate about 17 liters of water for one U.S. cent, and that it recycles about five times more water than does second-ranked Spain.
In other words, the looming drought-driven upheaval of populations -- probably the very worst of the region's many profound problems -- can be solved, with brainpower and political maturity. Desperate neighbors might think about ending their futile state of war with the world's hydraulic superpower and instead learn from it.
Parched California is already working with Israeli industrialists, government experts and academics on advanced water technologies and long-term strategies to lessen the effects of its severe drought.Combating BDS
One example is the $1 billion ocean-water desalination plant Israel’s IDE Technologies is building to provide 50 million gallons of water daily in the San Diego area starting in November.
But that’s just a trickle compared to the flood of joint projects that could get flowing in the coming dry years.
Israel’s population is 8.3 million, while California’s is 38.8 million. Yet California can implement many aspects of Israel’s holistic approach combining education, technology and water management, says Yossi Yaacoby, director of the WaTech innovation center for Mekorot, Israel’s national water-management consortium.
“We have so much we can contribute to the discussion. There are several steps we can take together to overcome the lengthening cycles drought we are expecting,” Yaacoby tells ISRAEL21c.
Combating BDS requires a deep understanding of the movement, its funding, organizational architecture, and the plethora of Jewish and Muslim NGOs who fund-raise and train on its behalf, for example, the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).Holland to cut stipends of Holocaust survivors living in settlements
There is finally movement in the anti-BDS camp to break down some of the basic elements that need to be addressed and educate the still scattered opposition. During the past few months two conferences took place with the goal of looking at the heart of the campus – students and faculty. The StandWithUS (SWU) conference in Los Angeles focused largely on students and what they face in the fight against BDS. This is a major concern to parents and the mainstream Jewish Community, as we seek to empower and educate students on the responsibilities of free speech and the facts pertaining to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But a greater concern that often fails to receive attention are professors, who represent a permanent fixture in any university. A symposium at the University of Baltimore School of Law entitled Academic Freedom at Risk: the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement Against Israel featuring a variety of experts, including retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz who delivered the keynote address. With regard to faculty who rarely speak out against the BDS movement Dershowitz commented that he has “never met a less courageous group of people than tenured professors…who don’t have the guts to stand up to the loud-mouth people on the hard left who try to create an atmosphere of political correctness on our campus.”
The move was slammed on Monday by former Labor MK Colette Avital, the head of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, an umbrella agency representing 52 different groups seeking to promote the welfare of survivors.IsraellyCool: Our Flawed Response To The “European Colonialism” Libel
“A European government can certainly take a position as it relates to Israel’s policies in the territories, but the conclusions in this regard need to be taken up with those who make the decisions in Israel,” Colette Avital said on Israel Radio.
“It is surprising and outrageous that the Dutch government, of all countries, chooses to impose sanctions against civilians who endured the Holocaust on its territory and who subsequently chose to move in with their children at an old age,” she said. “It is hard to accept such harassment of survivors, whose welfare should be sacrosanct in the eyes of the Dutch authorities.”
In response, the spokesperson for the Dutch Ministry dealing with the matter said that the Dutch authorities were in touch with the family involved, and that this “very unfortunate” incident “should have been prevented.”
The official said that since the woman could not have known the consequences of moving to the “occupied territories,” her pension will not be reduced.
“The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs will soon publish a modified policy regarding pension beneficiaries in the territories occupied by Israel,” the official said.
Asked by The Jerusalem Post whether this meant that other Dutch Holocaust survivors living in the settlements will have pension benefits cut, the spokesperson responded: “The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs will soon publish a modified policy. After publication, this new policy will be applied to new cases. The Dutch authorities cannot yet prejudge the exact provisions of this new policy.”
One of the most damaging stereotypes promulgated by the anti-Israel crowd is the “white European colonialism” myth. In other words, it is claimed that since the overwhelming majority of pre-1948 Jewish olim are of Ashkenazi descent (i.e. Israelite refugees who settled in Central/Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages), Israel’s rebirth is essentially a European settler colonial construct and therefore an “injustice” against the Arab population of Palestine, who are believed to be indigenous. And we all know how civilized, progressive people are supposed to treat settler colonial states: boycotts, isolation, and delegitimization. For this reason, it has become the centerpiece of contemporary antisemitic propaganda, and remains a popular slogan among those who want nothing more than to bring the Jewish state down.Canada May Propose Defining Boycott of Israel a ‘Hate Crime’
But what’s even worse is our preferred method for responding to this libel. Instead of confronting it head on, we offer what amounts to little more than an evasion. What I’m referring to here is the “more than 50 percent of Israel is Sephardic and Mizrahi” counter-argument. It is ineffectual, lazy, and akin to applying bandages to axe wounds. By immediately moving the subject over to Sephardim (the majority of whom returned after Israel’s War of Independence), you are tacitly conceding to the anti-Zionists that Israel’s rebirth was, in fact, a European colonial project. And just how do you think people will respond if you tell them “Israel may have been established by thieving colonizers from Europe, but hey! Look at those Sephardim! They came from Arab countries, right? That means they’re legitimately Middle Eastern, so we can just ignore all of that earlier colonial business!”? Do you think that’s going to convince them of Israel’s legitimacy? I can almost guarantee that it won’t. At first glance, it may seem like an easy and convenient rebuttal, but it is deeply flawed and doesn’t disprove anything.
The pro-Israel Canadian government may be planning to include boycotts of Israel as a hate crime, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported Monday.Anti-Israel Course is a Campus Farce
It said that such a move would target organizations such as the United Church of Canada, Canadian Quakers, campus protest groups and labor unions. It also would raise legal questions under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Canadian Prime Stephen Harper is unarguably the most pro-Israel head of any government in the world. He sounded like an echo of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his visit to Israel last year.
Recently-retired Foreign Minister John Baird in January signed an agreement with Israel to fight the Boycott Israel movement, and government ministers have said they will show “zero tolerable” towards groups that are part of Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS). He described the Boycott Israel movement as “the new face of anti-Semitism.”
Sunday’s New York Times has a story on the campus boycott Israel movement. Toward the end, it alludes to a controversy at the University of California, Riverside. I quote the passage in full:Al Qaeda’s Base at MIT
The disputes often spill into the academic realm. Jewish groups are urging the University of California, Riverside, to shut down a student-taught seminar called “Palestinian Voices.” They argue that the course, which is sponsored by an outspoken faculty supporter of the B.D.S. campaign and includes sessions on “Settler-Colonialism and Apartheid,” amounts to indoctrination.
Although one can understand why the reporters chose not to write more about the Riverside story, the story is worthy of further consideration. First, the faculty “sponsor” is not merely an “outspoken faculty supporter of the B.D.S. campaign.” David Lloyd, an English professor is part of the “Organizing Collective” (really?) of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. He may be just an English professor. But fortunately, the person he is sponsoring to teach the course is better qualified to teach an informative and rigorous course touching on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Oh wait. Tina Matar, who will be teaching the one credit course, is actually an undergraduate, also in the English department. She is also president of Riverside’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has spearheaded the campus boycott Israel movement nationally. Riverside has passed a divestment resolution, targeting companies alleged to profit from Israel’s activities in the West Bank. More recently, it has persuaded Riverside to stop using Sabra hummus in its dining halls. But let’s be fair. Even a fervent undergraduate partisan might somehow manage to teach a rigorous course, as worthy of one measly credit as others (undergraduate teaching is a thing at Riverside).
At the end of April, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology unveiled a permanent memorial to MIT Police Officer Sean Collier. Officer Collier was gunned down by the Boston Marathon bombers, Chechen refugees Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, three days after they blew up the Marathon.The Washington Post sinks to Mondoweiss level (updated)
It is painful to learn that in the late 1990s, there were students at MIT who helped recruit for the Chechen jihad and raised funds for Al Qaeda-affiliated groups operating in the Tsarnaevs’ homeland. It is even more painful that the man who led this fundraising effort was still on MIT’s staff when Officer Collier was gunned down.
Suheil Laher had been MIT’s Muslim chaplain for almost 20 years. Today he continues to preach at the Islamic Society of Boston, the extremist mosque founded by MIT students near campus, where the Tsarnaevs worshipped during their radicalization.
Americans for Peace and Tolerance have just released a mini-documentary, “Al Qaeda’s Base at MIT,” showing how MIT Muslim chaplain Suheil Laher used his leadership of the MIT Muslim Students Association as a vehicle for raising money for Al Qaeda causes around the world. We especially focus on the Al Qaeda affiliate in Chechnya, which Laher and his associates lionized, even as MIT trusted him to be its Muslim students’ spiritual guide.
The usual suspects have been pulling out all of the stops to attack Israel’s new Justice Minister, MK Ayelet Shaked. Shaked has been called a racist, accused of inciting genocide, even compared to Hitler. Until recently, this kind of verbal excrement has been confined to marginal outlets like that running sewer of Jew-hatred, the Mondoweiss blog (you can google it if you wish; I don’t provide links to running sewers). But now, amidst the overall degradation of discourse about Israel and Jews, it even appears in the Washington Post.Sick: Gaza Blogger Uses Disabled Child's Picture to Smear Israel
The sewage is recycled by Post writer Ishaan Tharoor, who does link to Mondoweiss and regurgitates the slander that he finds there:
In July [2014], in a controversial post on Facebook, the then-member of the Knesset posted the text of an article by the late Israeli writer Uri Elitzur that referred to Palestinian children as “little snakes” and appeared to justify the mass punishment of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation….
Even if these aren’t Shaked’s own words, the sentiment is noteworthy, and it reflects what critics say is the Israeli nationalist right’s widespread intolerance of the Arabs in their midst, who make up one-fifth of the Israeli population.
Shaked’s Facebook post was selectively quoted at the time by a writer named Gideon Resnick, and pushed to go viral in the left-wing blogosphere by Ali Abunimah of “Electronic Intifada.” Shaked responded, (h/t NormanF)
A Palestinian Arab blogger and "award-winning journalist" has been caught cynically using a picture of a severely disabled Palestinian child for propaganda purposes, falsely claiming his limbs were blown off by the Israeli military during last summer's conflict with Gaza.BBC coverage of terrorism in Israel in April 2015
Mohammed Omer - who started the Rafah Today blog and has written for numerous major news outlets including Al Jazeera, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, the New Statesman, Aftonbladet and others - received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2008.
The Prize is granted to journalists who "tell an unpalatable truth, validated by powerful facts."
But ironically, Omer's reporting skills have been exposed as anything but truthful after a tweet he posted Sunday, featuring a Palestinian toddler from Gaza he claims is "one of the last Gaza war victims," referring to last summer's Operation Protective Edge.
But the picture in question is of Mohammed al-Farra, a toddler from Gaza with a rare genetic disease who has been living at Israel's Tel Hashomer hospital with his grandfather after being abandoned by his parents.
Soon after being exposed, Omer removed the tweet - which had been retweeted dozens of times by then.
A terror attack in Jerusalem’s French Hill neighbourhood on April 15th in which one person was killed and another seriously injured was not reported by the BBC.Report: Anti-Semitic vandalism spiked in Ukraine in 2014
A missile attack from the Gaza Strip on April 23rd did not receive any BBC coverage.
A stabbing incident in Hebron and a car attack in Jerusalem on April 25th were also not reported.
In other words, BBC audiences were informed of less than 2% of the total number of attacks which took place during April and the corporation’s coverage did not include the fatal attack on civilians which took place at a location less than a twenty-minute drive from the BBC’s offices in Jerusalem.
Vyacheslav Likhachev, who monitors anti-Semitism for the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress and the Vaad, recorded 23 such incidents over the course of the year within both Ukrainian and separatist- held territory. Incidents of vandalism had held steady at nine annually since 2011, having fallen from a peak of 21 in 2006.Vandals destroy monument to Polish Jews killed in Holocaust
“Thus, even though the statistics for 2014 display significant growth in both anti-Semitic vandalism and anti-Semitic violence in comparison with previous years, the peak of the crimes remains in the mid-2000s [first decade of the century], and when taking the long perspective, the situation over the last five years seems to be relatively stable,” Likhachev explained.
Popular targets for vandals were Holocaust memorials, including Kiev’s Babi Yar. Several synagogues, in Zaporizhya, Simferopol, Mykolaiv, Kiev and Hust, also were targeted in attempted arson attacks.
According to Likhachev, the increase in the desecration of Jewish sites can be explained by the fact that “symbolic violence has now been legitimized in Ukrainian society,” with a significant percentage of Ukrainians approving of the destruction of statues of Lenin and other Russian and communist symbols.
An act of vandalism destroyed a monument commemorating a Polish Jewish community.8 decades on, Holocaust victim’s plea heard at NC high school
Police are investigating last week’s incident at the Jewish cemetery in Rajgrod, a town of some 1,700 in northeastern Poland. The cemetery does not have security monitoring.
The monument was unveiled last September by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland and Israeli Avi Tzur, whose ancestors came from Rajgrod. The town’s Jewish population was liquidated in 1942.
Shira Goldberg stepped across the stage at East Henderson High School in western North Carolina and presented a yellowed letter to Shani Lourie.2014 a record year for life science investments
The letter’s writer, a German woman seeking help in escaping the Nazis from an American man she believed was a relative, was Shira’s distant cousin. The 8-year-old Florida girl was entrusting this tragic piece of family history to Lourie, an educator at Israel’s national Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem.
The act on Wednesday morning climaxed a more than yearlong search for information about the letter conducted by approximately 60 students — none Jewish — in the history classes taught by Todd Singer, a Jewish man new to the profession.
“I beg you not to put this letter aside without having read it,” Betty Erb, a resident of Berlin, wrote on April 17, 1939, to John G. Erb of 2030 Conlyn Street in Philadelphia.
The industry, Zeevi said, “is rapidly and exuberantly growing, while playing an important role in the world healthcare market. Following a decade of significant growth, the Israeli life sciences industry is continually demonstrating encouraging parameters of maturity and promising signs towards a breakthrough decade.”Israeli pollution app entrepreneurs to be feted at White House
Zeevi made the comments in a report on the business in advance of this week’s BioMed 2015, an annual event that generally draws hundreds of industry executives, scientists and engineers, with thousands of attendees from over 45 countries. As in previous years, hundreds of Israeli life science companies will present and exhibit their products, services and technologies allowing for hands-on experience.
According to figures from the Israel Venture Capital (IVC) Research Center, quoted in the IATI report, $801 million was invested in 167 life sciences companies, a figure that was 55% higher than the $516 million raised by 142 companies in 2013, and 64% more than the $489 million invested in 133 life sciences companies in 2012. Between 2005 and 2011, an average of $371 million was invested in 99 life sciences companies annually.
Israeli entrepreneurs Ran Korber, Emil Fisher, and Ziv Lautman are to be honored at the White House Monday, when they will be lauded for their technology’s contribution to improving the human condition.Israeli invention fights stunted growth in children
The entrepreneurs’ BreezeoMeter app caught the White House’s attention, said Lautman, because “air pollution is at the front of the stage, as the president recently launched the climate change action plan, that focuses on reducing air pollution emissions,” and BreezoMeter’s technology helps raise people’s consciousness about air pollution – helping them to avoid it and incentivizing them to do something about it.
The ceremony at the White House Monday will bring together emerging entrepreneurs from across the United States and around the world who have taken on some of the world’s toughest challenges – poverty, climate change and extremism, as well as access to education and healthcare. This event comes ahead of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya this summer, which US President Barack Obama is set to visit.
BreezoMeter’s technology shows how good or poor air quality is in a specific location — like right outside your house. According to Korber, who developed BreezoMeter along with Lautman, the app “takes information from pollution stations and extrapolates it, based on wind direction, speed, and other factors, to give an accurate reading of pollution levels even far away from a station.”
A new dietary supplement developed at Schneider Children's Medical Center in Israel has successfully helped children in the bottom 10th percentile for height and weight grow taller and gain weight. The supplement, named Up-Pro, will be available in stores in the near future.Jews reclaim former Silwan synagogue
Studies show that children who took the supplement grew 1-2 centimeters taller than the control group, who were given placebos. The children's height to weight ratio was not affected, and the additive did not cause anyone to become overweight.
The participants in the trial were children in the bottom 10th percentile of height and weight for their age, who do not suffer from hormonal disorders associated with stunted growth.
"Until now we did not have a solution for these kids," the head of the hospital's Endocrinology and Diabetes Institute, Professor Moshe Phillips, said.
A former synagogue in 'Arab' Silwan (Shiloah) in Jerusalem, abandoned by Yemeni Jews in the 1930s, has been restored to Jewish ownership, in spite of Palestinian Arab protests. The Jerusalem Post reports:IAF Pilot in Flight Action
Amid accusations of a brazen “takeover” by Jews of a sought-after former Yemenite synagogue occupied by an Arab family in Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood early Wednesday morning, a right-wing NGO heralded the move as legal and long overdue.
“Israeli settlers took over three apartments in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, under the pretext they are absentee’s property, according to local sources,” Palestinian news organization WAFA reported.
“Witnesses told WAFA that a group of settlers, guarded by police officers, arrived in Silwan at midnight and broke into three vacant apartments owned by the Abu Nab clan. Police said the settlers had won a court ruling establishing that the three apartments are the property of Yemenite Jews [from] a long time ago,” it continued.
Despite claims that the apartments were misappropriated in the cloak of night while the family that lived there was away, Ateret Cohanim, an organization that purchases properties for Jews in Arab neighborhoods, said the property was vacant and legally acquired.
The Holy Land (4K Timelapse)
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