Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Jewish Pundit Hounded by Black Lives Matter, White Supremacists Says He’s Received More Antisemitic Tweets Than Any Media Peer
Calling himself “more conservative than [President-elect Donald] Trump on every issue,” yet the bane of the alt-right, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire — who has the distinction of being “one of the few people who has managed to unite the Black Lives Matter movement and white supremacists in protest against him” — told the UK-based J-TV that he has received more antisemitic tweets in the past year than any of his colleagues in the media.
On the program “Current Affairs” — moderated by the UK-based Henry Jackson Society founder and executive director Dr. Alan Mendoza — Ben Shapiro, an American political author, pundit and Orthodox Jew, who resigned from Breitbart News Network in March after a widely publicized incident involving reporter Michelle Fields and former Trump staffer Corey Lewandowski — said nevertheless that he does not believe that the incoming administration in Washington will be antisemitic.
“I’ve been a very critical voice about Donald Trump and about [former Breitbart editor] Steve Bannon, his White House chief strategist, in particular,” he said. “[But] I don’t have any evidence that [either is] antisemitic. I think that both are willing to pander to some of the worst people in the world on the alt-right in order to advance their agenda on particular issues, but there is no evidence that Trump is particularly anti-Israel, and Breitbart has never been an anti-Israel site; it’s always been a very pro-Israel site, so I’m not deeply concerned about antisemitism in the Trump administration as much as I am about the emboldenment of antisemites through a kind of patting on the head… But as far as policy [is concerned]…I think it’s going to be a more pro-Israel administration than the Obama administration was…”
Who’s Really Driving “Grassroots” Anti-Israel Activism in America?
“Israelis have to be bombed… it is wrong to maintain the State of Israel. It is an illegitimate creation” — Taher Herzallah, American Muslims for Palestine National Campus CoordinatorWikiLeaks: UN Human Rights Council Nothing More Than “Cudgel With Which To Batter Israel”
One of the most prominent faces of BDS in America is Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — a self-titled “grassroots, human rights organization” with branches at dozens of US campuses. But while it claims to be “resisting racism,” SJP’s 2014 national conference featured a keynote speaker infamous for defending public calls to “shoot the Jew!” This discrepancy between SJP’s stated principles and its conduct is no exception: funded and closely guided by AMP and other political interest groups, SJP systematically exploits the language of social justice to promote a bigoted agenda.
In private SJP denies Israel’s right to exist, while in public they claim to support justice and peace.
SJP’s ties to AMP run deep, and SJP itself has admitted that, “NGO employees are in powerful positions,” within their movement. AMP chairman and Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian co-founded SJP in 2000 and is credited with “help[ing] to construct [the] successful narrative SJP has produced over the years” (in fact, AMP supplies the infamous “wall” that SJP displays on campuses). AMP organized the first SJP national conference in 2010, and has funded the group’s national conferences ever since. AMP’s own conferences include a “Campus Track” with sessions on “How To Start an SJP”.
AMP, in turn, has disturbingly close ties not only with Hamas but also with its parent organization — the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is a religious supremacist movement which believes that Islam must “impose its law on all nations.” The Brotherhood openly promotes homophobia and female genital mutilation, and vigorously fought efforts to bring Sudan’s dictator to justice for genocide against Africans in Darfur. AMP emerged in 2005 as a successor to the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), which was, according to memos uncovered by the FBI, founded by the Brotherhood “to serve the cause of Palestine on the political and media fronts” in the US. That is, the IAP was established by the Brotherhood — a foreign religious supremacist group — to spread propaganda. The IAP officially advocated for replacing Israel with an Islamist theocracy, and its former leaders now oversee AMP’s finances.
Former United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard Falk has proven himself to be no fan of Israel, to put it mildly. He wrote a book called “Slouching Towards a Palestinian Holocaust” after all. But if you think he’s bad (and he is), he’s nothing compared to the UN Human Rights Council.
A recently released Wikileaks cable from 2008, sent by the US Mission Geneva to the US Secretary of State, reveals that Falk proposed the UNHRC’s mandate be expanded to included – wait for it – violations of international humanitarian law by palestinians (but not non-international human rights violations by palestinians because we are talking about Richard Falk here).
As you can see from the cable, Falk’s proposal went down like a lead balloon.
Note the acknowledgement that the UNHRC is just an instrument with which to batter Israel.
1. (C) Summary: Newly appointed Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, took the Human Rights Council by surprise in his first appearance before the body June 16 by proposing that his mandate be expanded to include violations of international humanitarian law by Palestinians. Falk’s proposal had clearly not been previewed either for supporters of the mandate, nor for Israel, the U.S., or any other delegation that opposes it. In a June 18 meeting with Mission officers, Falk admitted he had been unaware of the intense political sensitivities regarding this mandate at the Council, and noted that representatives of Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) delegations had told him that reopening the mandate would be impossible for procedural reasons. In fact, the Review, Rationalization and Improvement (RRI) of the OPT mandate, which Israel had hoped would be scheduled for the September 2008 Council session, does not appear on the program of work and will not be conducted at that time. Still, Falk’s proposal highlighted not only his unfamiliarity with the highly charged political environment in Geneva, but perhaps also an unexpected independence and approach to his new mandate that may make him a more serious interlocutor on this issue than his predecessor had been. End Summary.
Brian Thomas: Let’s Use Trump’s Tactics to Change Minds on Israel
Zionism is a curse word in Europe for the Left and the far-Left. But what about the post-Trump alt-right, and its smaller sub-group — the alt-white?Ryan Bellerose: Academic Freedom vs Hate Speech
Many in the alt-Right have negative views of the Jewish establishment in the US. Obviously there are some extreme elements (lets call them the alt-white), which hold reflexively Jew hating views. These are the classic far-Right and neo-Nazis who’ve been around forever.
With the exception of those alt-white unreachable and unreconcilable racist Jew haters, it is clear the vast majority of Trump’s voters are decent people, open to a reasonable presentation of Israel’s Jewish story. This comes through loud and clear, especially in surveys showing GOP widespread support for Israel. And we can, and should, use Trump’s own media tactics to educate them and the wider world about Israel.
Trump won the presidency of the United States despite attacks from the mainstream media. Hillary Clinton’s campaign delighted in presenting the comprehensive list of newspapers that had endorsed Donald Trump: it was a blank page. (And many of these had always supported Republican candidates).
It was the same on TV. To some degree, all the networks were openly pushing for Hillary.
I am done with being polite to bigots.Video campaign launched in support of Facebook suit
The new thing that bigots do is hide behind freedom, the same freedoms my family fought and died for. Freedom of speech was never meant to mean free to spout hate or bigotry. The people who fought for freedom of speech fought so that we could express our views without fear of being oppressed. They never thought people espousing conspiracy theories would use it to demonize and delegitimize minorities.
As for the notion of academic freedom, it was meant to protect ACADEMICS, not to allow anyone with a university education to spout idiocy so they could espouse theories that are counter to what’s commonly accepted by the mainstream. Yes, men like Copernicus and Galileo should have been allowed to pursue their theories, but those men were academics in the purest sense. Their pursuit was for knowledge, untainted by agendas. They used scientific method and didn’t start out with a conclusion – they worked to find one.
The thing about academic freedom is that it’s assumed to be accompanied by academic rigour. This means that anything you presume to teach must have some factual foundation, it must be something you can demonstrate and prove using scientific method. It must stand up to challenges both from peers and from outside experts. Without academic rigour, academic freedom just becomes an easily abused idea. It becomes a joke. I can argue that academia has gotten lax with rigour which has led to many universities to allow the teachings of some demonstrably false notions. We should be challenging these ideas and to the shame of academia we have not been.
The Israel-based civil rights organization, Shurat Hadin, today released a YouTube video in a campaign to support its two major lawsuits against Facebook for inciting terrorism.
The video comes shortly after a stabbing and car-ramming attack by a Muslim Ohio State University student last week which closely followed the student's posting a rant on his Facebook page.
That attack and video underscore Shurat HaDin’s lawsuits against Facebook, pending in a district court in Brooklyn, New York. A hearing to decide whether those cases can proceed to trial is scheduled for January 19, 2017.
The video, “Who’s Behind Terror? Rewind!,” inspired by the movie “Memento,” opens with a slow-motion replay of a terrorist bomb attack in New York City, then rewinds time 10 minutes, then two hours, then 24 hours, then three months, to show the key moments when Facebook helped incite the terrorist to act.
“Facebook and other social media platforms have become a crucial component for international terror, the same as guns, bombs and money,” said Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the founder of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center. “For years now, Facebook has continued to provide a platform for terrorist incitement despite repeated warnings. This has become one of today’s top global threats. Social media platforms want to believe terror has nothing to do with them and that they have unlimited immunity and can do whatever they want. We are going to put an end to it.”
Prominent Mideast Studies Profs Sexually Harassed Students
The famously self-righteous field of Middle East studies, which lambasts outside criticism as “censorship” and condemns America, Israel, and the West while lauding Islamists, now finds itself on the defensive. Two of its leading lights, the University of California, Berkeley’s Nezar AlSayyad and the University of California, Los Angeles’s Gabriel Piterberg, have been accused of sexually harassing female graduate students.Colleges aren’t just politically correct — they’re anti-Semitic
In October, UC Berkeley concluded an investigation, finding that, between 2012 and 2014, AlSayyad, who chairs the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) and teaches architecture, built a relationship, including frequent social invitations and hugs, with graduate student Eva Hagberg Fisher in an effort to “groom” her. A car ride during which he put his hand on her thigh and proposed a trip together to Las Vegas was the final straw.
The report found that AlSayyad isolated the student from other professors and was on the exam committee whose approval was required for her to complete her dissertation. He also edited a journal in which many students hoped to be published.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that two other students complained about AlSayyad’s conduct, including one who filed a complaint in April alleging they had sex over twenty years ago under similar circumstances. While AlSayyad denies the charges, the investigation upheld Hagberg Fisher’s claims and the university suspended him for a semester.
Berkeley graduate students, upset at the university for its initial silence, expressed their disapproval by walking out of AlSayyad’s section, protesting outside his department, and marching across campus chanting, “Protect Students, Not Tenure.” They have the option of completing one of his required courses with a new instructor.
Some current and former students sent a letter to Berkeley’s administration defending AlSayyad and asking that the university “withhold judgement” until the investigation has concluded. Transforming the Egyptian-born AlSayyad into the victim, the signatories asserted an atmosphere of “increased conflicts and racist sentiments” could lead to a rush to judgement, “especially when the subject is being identified in the news as a Middle East scholar.” It’s little wonder he claimed earlier, “I actually feel terribly victimized.”
It was billed as a rally for students to demand free tuition from public institutions of higher education and lodge a cornucopia of grievances.British Jewish Student Leader: I Was Wrong to Believe in Remorse of Controversial President of National Union Over ‘Antisemitic’ Statements
Instead, some giddy demonstrators devolved into a pack of rabid haters.
“Death to Jews! Death to Jews!” members of the crowd shrieked.
This didn’t happen in Germany in the 1930s, nor was it a modern-day ISIS extravaganza. The hatefest occurred last year at the Million Student March at Manhattan’s Hunter College, part of the City University of New York.
It was supposed to be an exercise in economic rage against the machine, taking place on campuses throughout the United States. But the Hunter event resembled a pogrom, with scared Jews slandered, scapegoated and made to fear for their physical safety.
Welcome to today’s colleges and universities, many of them venues in which Jew-bashing is not just tolerated, it’s tacitly encouraged by the frequent inaction and support of woefully politically correct administrators and radical leftist professors.
The head of the UK’s Union of Jewish Students expressed disgust with himself on Monday for having had faith in the sincerity of the woman running the overall umbrella organization for students across Britain.Anti-Semitism Awareness Bill Passes Senate
In an op-ed in the Huffington Post UK, Josh Seitler said he couldn’t believe “how wrong [he] was” to have been persuaded that National Union of Students (NUS) President Malia Bouattia genuinely intended to repair relations with Jews on campus.
Seitler wrote that, during a meeting he held with her last month aimed at “rebuilding trust,” Bouattia appeared “remorseful” when she listened to his explanation of “why Jewish students are angry and frustrated,” and consider her comments — such as a 2011 article in which she referred to the University of Birmingham as a “Zionist outpost” with the “largest [Jewish Society] in the country” — antisemitic.
However, he said, her own account of the meeting indicated that she was not sorry. “Malia once again placed the blame back on Jewish students, suggesting that their anger was misplaced or invalid,” he wrote. “She expressed regret that her words had been ‘interpreted’ as antisemitic. She apologized for having ‘caused offense.’ Nowhere did she apologize for what she had said, or acknowledge that only Jewish students can define antisemitism.”
This, wrote Seitler, displays a “distinct lack of respect for Jewish students’ multifaceted identities” on Bouattia’s part, as she “fails to understand, accept or acknowledge — despite many Jewish students trying to tell her, time and time again — …that…their identities are inextricably linked with Israel.”
The bill was proposed by Senators Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, and Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, to “ensure the Education Department has the necessary statutory tools at their disposal to investigate anti-Jewish incidents,” according to a news release. The senators say the act is not meant to infringe on any individual right protected under the First Amendment, but rather to address a recent uptick in hate crimes against Jewish students. The bill is supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Casey listed the following examples of anti-Semitism in his explanation of the bill:Pro-Israel students at UCLA slam 'antisemitic' film screening attended by Roger Waters
The bill has attracted criticism from groups including Palestine Legal and Jewish Voice for Peace, who say the proposed definition of anti-Semitism wrongly conflates any criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish sentiments. The definition was rejected by the University of California earlier this year after similar complaints from free speech advocates, faculty and students. Kenneth Stern, who helped write the European Monitoring Center’s “working definition on anti-Semitism” on which the State Department definition is based, at that time argued that it would do “more harm than good” on college campuses.
- Calling for, aiding or justifying the killing or harming of Jews
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust
- Demonizing Israel by blaming it for all interreligious or political tensions
- Judge Israel by a double standard that one would not apply to any other democratic nation
In an article submitted to UCLA's newspaper, the Daily Bruin, a group of pro-Israel students expressed their concerns and even bewilderment at the university's administration for enabling what they said was a blatantly antisemitic event on university grounds.In first, Israel denies BDS activist entrance to the country
"The film is an intellectualization of the centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that a group of powerful, manipulative and domination-obsessed Jews have gained control of politics and media through a combination of wealth, power, influence and deceit," read the letter penned by two students and endorsed the representatives of several campus groups. "The film asserts that through sheer mendacity and careful scheming, Jews concocted stories of suffering, when in reality, they were the true oppressors."
"Rather than initiate a constructive dialogue about the role of the media in this conflict, 'The Occupation of the American Mind' devotes its energy to flirting with and perpetuating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories," the students lamented. "Our interest in writing this piece is not to silence the viewpoints put forth by the film. Rather than silencing voices, our goal is to combat 'bad speech' with constructive speech."
They explained that while they are both eager to promote their fellow students' constitutional rights such as freedom of speech, they were disappointed in those from the student body who backed the event, charging that they provided a platform of "identity-based hatred" that violated the university's code of conduct.
"Along with their right to screen this film comes our moral responsibility to call it what it is: inflammatory, anti-Semitic propaganda," stated the letter criticizing the film screening.
The group of pro-Israel students said that they felt their peers had failed to discern between pro-Palestinian activities and antisemitic agendas.
The article, published December 1, garnered the response of many who echoed their hopes to put a stop to antisemitic activities in student campuses across the US.
For the first time in the country's history, Israel on Monday denied entrance to a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) activist, citing "anti-Israel activity" as its reasoning.Naz Shah Attends Event With Extremist-Linked Zionist-Haters
Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri decided to deny the entry of Malawi citizen Isabel Phiri, who arrived Monday at Ben-Gurion Airport. The African country's national was then denied a tourist visa.
According to the Interior Ministry, Phiri has worked in the past with the World Council of Churches, an organization that has been supporting the BDS movement since 2002.
In a statement from the ministry, it was explained that the WWC organization Phiri collaborated with worked to advance the EAPPI plan - Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine.
UK - Naz Shah’s rehabilitation following her anti-Semitism scandal had been going well. Her mea culpa seemed genuine, she won the support of the Jewish community and came across well on a Channel 5 documentary last week. So it’s a shame she decided to attend an event in parliament with Mend, as the Sun on Sunday reports. Mend is a very unsavoury group. They employ Azad Ali, a man who has written of his “love” for an al-Qaeda terrorist. They have defended Cage, the extremist group linked to Jihadi John. Their Twitter feed is awash with rants about the “Zionist Lobby”. Their ex-chief Sufyan Ismail – who sat next to Shah at the event – has tweeted about “Zionist funders” of MPs. Mend also promoted a ‘Fake News’ conspiracy theory article claiming the “Israel Lobby manufactured” Shah’s anti-Semitism scandal. Regrettable that Naz is once again legitimising such behaviour…YouTube Banned Prager U Video “Born to Hate Jews” – Reinstated After Protest and Petition
YouTube banned Prager University’s latest video entitled, “Born to Hate Jews.” The video feature Kasim Hafeez, a British Muslim who tells the story of how he overcame anti-Semitic indoctrination. Hafeez is now a pro-Israel activist.Green Party of Canada adopts its most extreme anti-Israel resolution to date
Hafeez almost enlisted in a terrorist training camp before realizing the error of his ways. He explained how hatred drives many young Muslims into terrorism.
Naturally YouTube labelled the video “hate speech”. The version beneath is embedded from Facebook:
Shortly after the video was published, YouTube banned it. Previously, YouTube restricted twenty-one Prager U videos, removing restrictions from four after receiving a petition bearing more than 85,000 signatures.
On December 3, 2016, the one-seat Green Party of Canada passed its most anti-Israel resolution to date.The BSA And The Terror-tories
The new resolution replaced the one passed at the Greens’ annual convention in August, which at that time accorded the party the dubious distinction of being the first and only Canadian party to formally endorse the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, whose explicit aim is to strangle the Jewish State by means of economic, academic and cultural boycott.
Ironically, the resolution was adopted just two days after the Ontario Legislature passed a private member’s bill to reject BDS and other bigoted campaigns against Israel and six months after a similar motion was adopted by the House of Commons.
The Greens’ resolution was sponsored, among others, by party leader Elizabeth May who in 2015 explicitly told Canadian Jewish News that her party does not support the BDS movement. She also categorically denied that BDS is an anti-Semitic movement, in spite of the fact that numerous Conservative MPs as well as Liberal MP Omar Alghabra conceded that BDS is anti-Semitic when he told the Parliament during a BDS debate last February: “… we must recognize that some BDS advocates may have anti-Semitic motives.”
Hey, you didn’t forget about The Occupation for a minute did you? No silly, we are not talking about Northern Cyprus, Tibet, Crimea, Balochistan, Western Sahara, or any of the other occupations around the world that you never hear about.BBC Academy touts Jeremy Bowen Gaza report as model journalism
We are talking, of course, about the Palestinians and their quest for self-determination.
The perpetually aggrieved Wellington Palestine Group (WPG) has been crusading again, apparently concerned that fair-minded Kiwis might momentarily forget about The Occupation or not have it at the forefront of their minds, and consequently fall prey to the subversive idea that attacks on innocent Jews are not justifiable.
In May Shalom.Kiwi reported on a decision by the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) that upheld a complaint by the Wellington Palestine Group (WPG). That complaint alleged that a One News broadcast mislead viewers into thinking that a stabbing of a 70-year-old woman in East Jerusalem was in “a legitimate part of Israel, and thus any resistance to The Occupation cannot be legitimate”. According to the BSA,
“East Jerusalem is internationally recognised as being part of Palestine, and viewers would have been misled into thinking that much of the violence took place in Israel”.
The BSA have essentially ruled in agreement with the notion that attacks on innocent Jews are acceptable, as long as they occur in certain places.
Like the BBC Academy’s portrayal of the circumstances in which the report was made, Bowen’s commentary is completely devoid of the context behind that story.Swedish party removes one of its members over anti-Semitism
“The IDF concluded Wednesday that Israeli tank shells caused the deaths of four Palestinian girls, including three daughters of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, when his house was accidentally attacked on January 16, during Operation Cast Lead. Following the investigation, the army confirmed that two shells had hit the building. […] The IDF said that a Golani Brigade force was operating near Beit Lahiya when it came under sniper and mortar fire in an area laden with explosives. After determining that the source of the fire was in a building adjacent to Abuelaish’s home, the force returned fire. While the IDF was shooting, suspicious figures were identified in the top floors of the doctor’s house, and the troops believed the figures were directing the Hamas sniper and mortar fire, the army said. Upon assessing the situation in the field while under heavy fire, the commander of the force gave the order to open fire on the suspicious figures, and it was from this fire that his three daughters were killed, said the IDF. Once the soldiers realized that civilians, and not Hamas gunmen, were in the house they ceased fire immediately, continued the army. […] The IDF Spokesman’s Unit stressed that in the days prior to the incident, Abuelaish – who had worked before at Beersheba’s Soroka University Medical Center and had very good connections with Israelis – was contacted personally several times by officers in the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration to urge him to evacuate his home because of Hamas operations and the intense fighting that was already taking place in that area for several days. In addition to the personal contact made directly with the doctor, the IDF issued warnings to the residents of Sajaiya by dropping thousands of leaflets and by issuing warnings via Palestinian media outlets.”
While the BBC Academy apparently holds the view that “context […] often… gets in the way”, it is difficult to see how BBC journalists can fulfil the corporation’s remit of building “understanding of international issues” if context is deemed an optional extra.
Sweden’s far-right party Sweden Democrats announced on Monday it had kicked out one of its members of parliament for anti-Semitism.Google removes ‘are Jews evil’ search suggestion
Anna Hagwall had in September proposed legislation to end state subsidies for media outlets that she said favor the Bonnier media group, whose controlling family has Jewish roots.
"For many years the Sweden Democrats have been working resolutely to end the currents of anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories in society," the party's chairman Jimmie Akesson said in a statement quoted by AFP.
"Through her statements, Anna Hagwall prejudiced this work and the party's image. Anna wants legislation in which people are divided by ethnic appearances. We don't support that," added Akesson.
The Sweden Democrats (SD) have been trying to distance themselves from some of their most radical elements in order broaden their electoral base.
Google has removed some of its search suggestions, including the phrase “are Jews evil,” which had been automatically generated by its search algorithm.Rock n’ roll bad boys Guns N’ Roses return to Tel Aviv
As of Monday, the phrase was no longer suggested to a user who typed in only the words “are Jews,” The Guardian reported.
Google also removed suggestions for other offensive search phrases pertaining to women that were brought up Sunday in a Guardian article. The phrase “are Muslims bad,” another wording brought up in the article, still appears when a user types in “are Muslims.”
“We took action within hours of being notified on Friday of the autocomplete results,” a Google spokesperson told The Guardian on Monday.
“Our search results are a reflection of the content across the web. This means that sometimes unpleasant portrayals of sensitive subject matter online can affect what search results appear for a given query. These results don’t reflect Google’s own opinions or beliefs – as a company, we strongly value a diversity of perspectives, ideas and cultures.
The spokesperson said the autocomplete predictions are generated algorithmically based on the search activity and interests of users.
The reunited hard rock band Guns N’ Roses will arrive in Israel this summer to perform a concert on July 15, 2017, at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park.Growing new bone from corals raised in the Israeli desert
Israeli promoter Guy Beser, part of the Bluestone Group, said on his Facebook page that he was “proud and excited to officially announce a concert from the reunited Guns N’ Roses” in Tel Aviv.
The promotion company is also handling the Aerosmith concert on May 17, 2017.
Guns N’ Roses will arrive in Israel as part of its “Not in This Lifetime” tour, a reunion for vocalist Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan, who haven’t played together for the last 23 years.
The band, which was founded in 1985 with its first studio album, 1987’s “Appetite for Destruction,” featuring the number-one single “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” was known for a new brand of hard rock and for hedonism reminiscent of the early Rolling Stones.
Their May 1993 concert in Tel Aviv was part of a major, two-year world tour following their 1991 twin albums, “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II,” which sold a combined 35 million copies worldwide.
An Israeli bone-graft product made of enhanced coral has received CE approval to start sales in Europe for dental and orthopedic procedures.Biblical sheep in Israel for first time in millennia
This unique product is made from corals grown in a closed system using patented technology to provide bioactivity and eliminate biological contamination.
Many practitioners and medical device companies have already contacted CoreBone to learn more about its advantages over currently available products for bone grafting, says CEO Ohad Schwartz.
“Bone grafts ideally should have four features,” he explains. “They must be bioactive, not just a passive scaffold, in order to attract new bone cells; they must be strong enough to support the site, especially for implants; they must allow for being replaced as new bone grows; and they must be porous to enable vascularity,” meaning that blood vessels can grow through them naturally and produce growth of bone from the inside out.
“If you have all those features, you have a very good bone graft,” Schwartz continues. “We have all of those.”
Some organic grafts from animals or humans also have those features but they pose a serious risk of rejection and transmitting disease. Synthetic grafts avoid these risks but are much weaker than natural bone.
The sheep have landed. After three years of high-level negotiations between the Israeli and Canadian governments, 119 heritage sheep, which trace their lineage back 5,000 years to the Middle East, began arriving in Israel on November 30. It is the first time that the breed, called Jacob’s sheep, has been represented in Israel since biblical times.Christian-funded group claims a fifth of Jewish immigration in 2016
Three of the 11 flights carrying the sheep have already arrived in Israel, according to Gil and Jenna Lewinsky, the shepherds who began raising these ovines on a whim in western Canada. “The first sheep arrived on the Jewish calendar the day that Noah came out of the ark, the 28th of Heshvan,” said Jenna Lewinsky.
“It was beautiful to see them walk on the soil of Israel,” she said. “As a Jewish person I am so connected to the land, but to see the whole project connecting — it’s going to stay with me for the rest of my life.” Jenna Lewinsky immigrated to Israel just three weeks before the first flight of sheep came on their own baa-liyah.
Senetic markings for the breed date back at least a few thousand years to the Middle East. The journey for the sheep began in ancient Syria (also the biblical home of Laban) and passed through North Africa. Moorish invaders brought the breed to Spain, and then to England, where the animal was something of a trophy sheep. A number were brought to North America, originally for zoos and then later for commercial use.
A Christian-funded philanthropy group announced it will have helped nearly 20 percent of Jews resettle in Israel this year, claiming a much larger share of immigration than ever before and drawing the ire of the main immigration body.New Film Tells Story of How Underdog Basketball Team Put Israel 'On The Map' After Yom Kippur War
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews revealed to JTA for publication Monday that it was on track to bring 4,300 Jews to Israel in 2016, accounting for 18 percent of the total immigration from overseas. The fellowship heralded its increased role in aliyah, the Hebrew term for immigrating to Israel, which means ascending in English, as “a powerful shift in Jewish immigration to Israel.”
“Thanks to our millions of Christian supporters in the US and around the world, we are bringing more and more Jewish people home to Israel,” Eckstein said in a statement. “In just three years, we have become the major aliyah force in many countries, and we are determined to continue rescuing Jews around the world in the months and years ahead.”
Founded by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the fellowship is a nonprofit group that raises $180 million a year in donations for programs to benefit Israel and the Jewish people, mostly from Christians. In addition to assisting with immigration to the country, the group arranges trips and activities for immigrants inside Israel, job market guidance, child care solutions and, for needy immigrants, rent and dental care.
“We are on the map and we will stay on the map, not only in sports but in everything!”Next Independence Day to mark 50 years of unified Jerusalem
Those powerful words — uttered by American-Israeli basketball star Tal Brody — encapsulated the sentiments of an entire nation following underdog Maccabi Tel Aviv’s upset victory over powerhouse CSKA Moscow in the 1977 European Cup semi-finals.
Maccabi, led by Brody, would go on to win its first European title by defeating Mobilgirgi Varese two months later. The team’s dramatic success — which uplifted a small and battered Israel still reeling from the Yom Kippur War — has now been brought back to life in a new documentary film “On The Map,” directed by Dani Menkin.
“It has never been forgotten here,” the still-fit 73-year-old Brody told The Algemeiner in a telephone interview last week from his home in Israel as he worked out on his treadmill. “Maccabi has won five European titles since then, but you always remember your first love and for forty years we’ve been remembered like that in Israel. It’s amazing. It left a stamp. It was a win with very heavy meaning for generations.”
Brody said he was happy the story was now being told to the English-speaking world via the film, which focuses on the team’s six American players.
The theme for the 69th Israeli Independence Day will be "the jubilee of the reunification of Jerusalem -- the eternal capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish people," according to an announcement by Culture Minister Miri Regev Monday. Jerusalem was reunited in the 1967 Six-Day War after being split in the 1948 War of Independence between Israel and Jordan.
"We decided to reinforce and celebrate the jubilee year of Jewish sovereignty [in Jerusalem]," she said, "continuing an over 3,000-year-old historical bond of love and deep connection to Jerusalem, our united capital. United she stands today, and united she will forever remain."
Torch bearers will be chosen to represent the unity of Jerusalem, according to a statement by Regev's office. The Knesset's Symbols and Ceremonies Committee, headed by Regev, approved a budget for jubilee year ceremonies and celebrations. Government offices will use a special logo and a special anniversary stamp will be issued.
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