Pages

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

03/15 Links Pt2: Roseanne Barr fires back at anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour; The unforgivable shame of Mondoweiss. Protecting hatred of Jews

From Ian:

David Collier: The unforgivable shame of Mondoweiss. Protecting hatred of Jews
Last month I published a report investigating hard core antisemitism within the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). Despite focusing on those pushing Jewish conspiracy tales or Holocaust denial, Mondoweiss, and other anti-Zionist Jewish forces, felt compelled to attack me for it.
The report into antisemitism was clear cut, and I am sure alarm bells rang throughout PSC HQ. Although I have not yet received an official response for saving them time and highlighting bucket loads of antisemitism within their organisation, the PSC can thank me later.
When I compiled the report, I attempted to remove all references to the Israel / Arab conflict and focus on classic antisemitic tropes. I also sought to ensure that only real activists would be included (impossible to seal hermetically, but I certainly tried). I tried only to catch serial offenders.
Despite the research receiving wide coverage, there was no public comment from the PSC, or indeed from any of the anti-Israel activists. Privately however, there were some dark days and I received numerous threats. Then, last week, someone called Jonathan Ofir wrote a piece published in Mondoweiss attacking the report. Following this, the UK based group ‘freespeechinisrael’, reposted the piece. So happy were the Jewish anti-Zionists in the UK, that the URL of their page reads ‘ofir-demolishes-david-collier’. Demolishes? Wow.
This entire response by these anti-Zionist Jews is sickening. Not because of the attack itself, but because of what they felt compelled to protect – hard core, rabid, Jew hatred.
Roseanne Barr fires back at anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour
Outspoken comedian and actress Roseanne Barr said in 140 characters what many American Jews are thinking.
Pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour recently went on the record stating that ‘feminism and Zionism are incompatible’. Sarsour, who is also one of the leaders of the left-wing, grassroots ‘Women’s Movement’ sweeping across the US and around the world was once hailed by the Obama administration as a ‘champion of change’.
A favorite among many American Democrats, Sarsour’s fierce anti-Israel views haven’t gone unnoticed by the Jewish community.
Outspoken comedian and actress Roseanne Barr said in 140 characters what many American Jews are thinking. Taking to Twitter, Barr fired back at Sarsour, “Is it even possible to be a pro-Palestinian feminist?”
As a long time friend a supporter of Israel and the Jewish community, Barr has been an advocate for swift action against rising antisemitism in the US and around the world.
Linda Sarsour, you are not my friend
Or, to be totally cynical about this: It’s one thing to care about the graves of Jews.
But living Jews, in a Jewish state …
We should not be surprised. This has become the Palestinian’s M.O.
It’s called hijacking.
The PLO got real good at it in the late 1960s, when they began hijacking airplanes.
And when that didn’t work, they got around to hijacking every movement on the Left.
I first noticed this in 1973, right after the Yom Kippur War – how every left wing rally that I attended had an anti-Israel message velcroed (well, there was no Velcro in those days) onto it.
The Palestinians did that with the women’s movement as well.
It goes back at least as far as 1980.



Rebel Media in Israel:
Israeli Arab: "They give us everything"


The Rebel in Israel: Mission accomplished


Argentine president to meet with Israeli survivors of embassy bombing
For the first time, an Argentine president will meet with the Israeli survivors and relatives of victims of the 1992 terrorist attack against the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.
President Mauricio Macri will host a group of 30 Israelis on Friday morning at his official residence prior to a ceremony marking 25 years since the bombing, which killed 29 and injured more than 200.
Previous presidents have met in the past with the families of Argentine victims.
Among those who will meet with Macri and participate in the remembrance ceremony are Israel’s current ambassador to India and Sri Lanka, Daniel Carmon, who lost his wife, Eliora, in the attack; the Israeli ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing, Yitzhak Shefi, and the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Yuval Rotem.
Carmon is part of a campaign to stop terrorism featuring Argentine celebrities and the motto “peace without terror.”
Hotels join the list of venues canceling BDS events in Vienna
Hotel Kaiserwasser and Hotel Regina have pulled the plug on a pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions event featuring a British-Palestinian lawyer in Austria’s capital city.
The online news site Heute.at reported on Tuesday that Hotel Kaiserwasser canceled Wednesday’s anti-Israel talk, saying that BDS Austria claimed the hotel was accused of antisemitism and that a hotel employee was threatened by Vienna’s Jewish community.
“Nonsense,” said Raimund Fastenbauer, general-secretary of the 7,000-member Vienna Jewish community, adding that he informed the hotel about the “antisemitic character of BDS” movement targeting the Jewish state.
The Hotel said it canceled the event due to “operational unfeasability,” according to Heute.at. Fastenbauer told the news site, “Nazis demanded, ‘Don’t buy from Jews,’ BDS formulates the [Nazi] demand in a similar way today.”
Stefan Schaden, a board member of the Austrian- Israeli Society, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday: “BDS has an antisemitic agenda and leads a campaign of demonization, delegitimization and double standards against Israel. At first glance, BDS Austria may appear to be an independent NGO. However, there is no such organization in the Austria’s Interior Ministry’s central register of associations, and by their own account, they are coordinated by the Palestinian National Council (PNC)."
European rabbis pan ruling to prohibit religious garb in firms
European rabbis condemned an EU court’s ruling allowing firms to prohibit employees’ religious clothes and symbols, saying the ruling amounts to saying that “faith communities are no longer welcome.”
The ruling Tuesday by the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also said that customers cannot simply demand that workers remove headscarves if the company has no policy barring religious symbols. “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement.
The ruling, which came amid a rise in the popularity of anti-Muslim politicians in Europe over the proliferation of jihadist attacks on the continent and ethnic and religious tensions, was on two lawsuits filed by Muslim employees who were sanctioned for wearing religious symbols or prohibited from doing so.
“This decision sends signals to all religious groups in Europe,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Tuesday. “With the rise of racially motivated incidents and today’s decision, Europe is sending a clear message; its faith communities are no longer welcome. Political leaders need to act to ensure that Europe does not isolate religious minorities and remains a diverse and open continent.”
Italy vs. BDS
Let us revisit the University of Turin and the student union's call to boycott: The university's rector, Professor Gianmaria Ajani, rejected the letter sent by students to cease cooperation with Israel, and emphasized that the collaboration with the Technion was meant to improve public health, not produce weapons. The rector did not stop there: Under his authority the institute also decided to cancel a planned conference on the subject of educating civilians on "apartheid in Israel," explaining that there was in fact no apartheid in Israel.
Additionally, following pressure from the Jewish community in Rome, the event on Capitoline Hill was also canceled.
These examples demonstrate how the leadership of Italian academic institutes is taking a firm stance against the anti-Israel boycott movement. In my opinion, and in the opinion of many others, it is important to express gratitude toward the people who side with Israel around the world and are not fooled by the false claims of those who wish to harm us. Moreover, we must publish their opinions and help them gather arguments and facts to strengthen their stance.
In my personal experience, the vast majority of Italian researchers, particularly those dealing with science and technology, are in favor of strengthening ties with Israel. But unfortunately, this is a silent majority that sometimes appears to be non-existent faced with the vocal minority trying to negate Israel's right to exist. Over the past few weeks, the State of Israel and the Jewish community in Italy won an important battle against supporters of the boycott. To win the war, we must strengthen the hands of the academic leadership in Italy and continue all the more forcibly in our efforts to shape world public opinion.
Igor “Punch A Zionist” Sadikov Quits Remaining Student Post Due To “Mental Health” Reasons
Apparently, Sadikov had written an article in the McGill Daily criticizing a letter failing “to acknowledge our share of responsibility as SSMU councillors for the institutional failure of SSMU in responding to disclosures of gendered and sexual violence committed by (SSMU VP) Aird.” But in the article, he admitted to his own participation in rape culture – almost as an aside.
But this cannot be done without first critically assessing the role of our student institutions in perpetuating rape culture and excusing gendered and sexual violence – one that I have witnessed (and participated in) within both SSMU and my faculty association this year.
Prompting an ex-girlfriend to write the following:
Igor, I am disappointed by the article you recently published in response to your colleagues’ letter regarding David Aird. I do not appreciate that you place your admission to participating in rape culture in parentheses. That is not a side note that readers should take for granted or gloss over for one reason: all men benefit from patriarchal structures, but not all, in fact, have a history of abusive behaviour like yours.
You said in one of your (many) recent public Facebook posts: “I know what it means to do harm and commit violence. I have inflicted harm and violence on others in the past, and I have not always been held accountable for it.” Speaking as one of those “others” – specifically, the ex-girlfriend/colleague that you subjected to a significantly damaging amount of psychologically abusive behaviour over the course of a 1.5 year relationship – I can corroborate that statement. With these vague references you’ve made to your history of and complicity with gendered violence, you appear to be under the impression that this behaviour has given you some sort of epistemic privilege on the matter. It has not.
Britain’s Sussex U Investigating ‘Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Jews’ Graffiti Found on Campus
Officials at the University of Sussex have launched an investigation into graffiti found last week on campus that read, “Jet fuel can’t melt Jews. Holocaust was an inside job,” the UK’s Jewish Chronicle reported Monday.
The message was found on a public blackboard in Library Square and exposed on Twitter by a student, according to the report.
This was the second antisemitic incident in the past week at the university, with school newspaper The Badger reporting Thursday that a poster advertising a talk by Israeli scholars Yoav Peled and Horit Herman Peled, about their new book, The Religionization of Israeli Society, was defaced with swastikas.
Sussex’s Jewish Society expressed disgust with recent events and told The Badger, “We would like to reassure Jewish students that we are committed to their safety and wellbeing on campus and will take whatever measures necessary to protect that.”
In a statement, Sussex Vice Chancellor Adam Tickell said the university had taken “immediate action” and would “not tolerate any acts which are illegal or incite hatred,” according to the school paper.
Following ‘Jews Are Rodents’ Facebook Post Celebrating Anti-Israel Event at Ontario University, Administrators Vow to Investigate, Take Action Against Perpetrators
After a message comparing Jews to rodents was posted on Facebook in honor of an anti-Israel event at an Ontario university, administrators vowed this week to investigate and take action against the perpetrators.
“We don’t know yet if any of our students were involved, but we are looking at the incident and will follow our code of conduct if we find that they were,” said University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) vice president of external relations Susan McGovern about the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine celebrating online, following the covering up of an Israeli flag with its Algerian counterpart at an on-campus multicultural language festival on Thursday.
Other social media posts — which have all since been deleted — included telling a Jewish student to “go back to Palestine,” according to the Jewish human rights group B’nai Brith Canada.
“We work very, very hard to create students who will be good citizens, who we can proudly launch into society,” McGovern said. “We certainly do not condone such behavior and will not drop the ball on this matter.”
UK Israel Activists Dispute London University Claims of ‘Welcoming’ Atmosphere for Jews
Leading UK Israel activists told The Algemeiner on Monday that they dispute the claims of a London university’s director, made this weekend on a BBC broadcast, that her school has a welcoming atmosphere for Jews and supporters of the Jewish state.
The Pinsker Centre, a Zionism education group, said that Baroness Valerie Amos of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) — who made her comments during an appearance on this week’s episode of the UK network’s “Sunday Politics” news program, devoted to a discussion of increasing campus antisemitism — has not lived up to her assertion.
The Centre noted that the SOAS student union “overwhelmingly voted” in favor of BDS in 2015, and Jewish students have reported being routinely intimidated and frightened at the school. “Officially shutting down alternative opinion and harassing those who do not conform with a specific worldview is anything but ‘robust debate,'” the Centre said, using the term with which Amos characterized the SOAS culture.
Sussex Friends of Israel’s (SFI) spokesperson Fiona Sharpe also called out Amos for rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which the British government has officially adopted. Sharpe said Amos’s reference to the IHRA description as “contentious” was “extremely problematic and somewhat arrogant,” and called on the director to try and understand antisemitism from the perspective of the students whom it affects.
Kuwait Airways Faces Further Legal Action Over Its Discriminatory Policy of Refusing to Fly Israeli Passengers
Kuwait Airways is once again facing a legal challenge over its discriminatory policy of refusing to fly Israeli passengers.
The Lawfare Project — a US-based pro-Israel nonprofit legal group — has filed a complaint with a German court in a bid to shut down the carrier’s layover flights that link Europe with non-Arab League countries, such as India and Thailand.
Past Lawfare Project efforts have already led to Kuwait Airways halting service on US-Europe and inter-European routes.
The plaintiff in the latest case booked a ticket on Kuwait Airways to fly from Frankfurt to Bangkok, with a layover at Kuwait International Airport. Just before the first flight, according to the Lawfare Project, the airline — Kuwait’s flag carrier — cancelled the ticket after learning the plaintiff held Israeli citizenship.
“This plaintiff is asking for a ruling by the court that will allow every German traveler to fly on every airline operating in German airports, regardless of his/her national origin, religion, or ethnicity,” the Lawfare Project’s German counsel Nathan Gelbart said in a statement. “If Kuwait Airways wishes to operate flights from Frankfurt to Bangkok and to officially market these flights in Germany, they must either transport all passengers, including Israelis, or simply cease these flights.”
Visiting North-African Arab-Language Journalists Call Israel ‘Western, Free’
A delegation of North African journalists and bloggers visiting Israel this week said their first impression of the country was of state that is “Western and free,” English-language Israeli site Ynet News reported.
Six Algerian and Tunisian journalists came to the Jewish state as guests of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, following an invitation by Hassan Kaabiya, the country’s deputy spokesman for Arab media. The writers plan to meet with senior Israeli officials of the Foreign Ministry, the Supreme Court and the Knesset.
On Monday, the delegation visited Jerusalem’s Old City, the Temple Mount and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum.
This is the sixth such initiative to bring Arab-language journalists to experience Israel first-hand. In Nov. 2016, seven Moroccan writers were condemned by Palestinian terror group Hamas for participating in a similar weeklong trip.
Meet Ian Buruma, the New York Times’ Favorite Whitewasher of Islam
So it is that as the Dutch elections approached (they're happening today), one thing was for sure: eventually the Times would run a long piece by Ian Buruma.
You see, when it comes to any given topic, the Times has figured out exactly who will deliver just the right goods -- who will serve up a picture that neatly jibes with the one that the Times, in its editorials and its delicately slanted news stories, has repeatedly fed to its devoted (not to say devout) audience. As I noted in my 2009 book Surrender, the years 2005-6 saw the publication of several important works about the Islamization of Europe -- among them Claire Berlinski's Menace in Europe, Melanie Phillips' Londonistan, Mark Steyn's America Alone, and my own While Europe Slept -- but the Times, whose reviews are a key factor in spreading the word about new books, didn't deign to review any of them.
Yet when Ian Buruma's Murder in Amsterdam came along in September 2006, the Times commissioned reviews for both its daily and Sunday editions. The reviewers themselves were honorably dubious about his take on the Dutch situation. But the Times immediately began inviting him to contribute pieces on the topic.
Why? Because in Murder in Amsterdam, Buruma -- a former critic of Islam -- had changed his tune. Dramatically.
The book (which I reviewed here) was about the 2004 slaughter of Muslim critic Theo van Gogh and the background thereto. In it, Buruma (a Dutchman and a longtime professor at Bard College in New York) wrote about van Gogh, about van Gogh's courageous predecessor Pim Fortuyn (who'd been assassinated in 2002), and about van Gogh's equally brave collaborator Ayaan Hirsi Ali in such a way as to darken their reputations.
At the same time, he sought, in his accounts of interviews with jihad-supporting Dutch Muslims, to dance smoothly around their actual horrifying beliefs and objectives and to make them come off as reasonable social critics. Masterfully, Buruma strove to avoid such ticklish topics as honor killing, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, and the jihadist determination to destroy individual freedom, banish women's equality, and execute gays, apostates, and rape victims.
Channel 4 News fails to challenge Palestinian claim on Jerusalem eviction
A March 7th Channel 4 News video segment by international editor Lindsey Hilsum failed to challenge the narrative that Palestinians are being unjustly evicted from their homes in east Jerusalem. The segment – loosely centered around British foreign secretary Boris Johnson’s recent trip to the region – included an interview with a Palestinian woman named Nora Sublaban. Sublaban suggested that her family was being evicted by Israeli authorities for no good reason and that she’d lived in the apartment her entire life. “All of my memories are here”, she explained to Hilsum.
However, that’s not accurate. How do we know this?
Because our colleagues at CAMERA prompted a long New York Times Editor’s Note to an article by Diaa Hadid which advanced the same narrative. Here are excerpts from the original CAMERA analysis:
The Sub-Labans were at one time long-term tenants of the property in question, and under Israeli law enjoyed “protected tenant” status. That status can be lost if the tenant abandons the property without intention of returning – and this is true whether the tenant is Jewish or Arab.
The crucial fact – which Hadid omits – is that in 2001 the family left the property and moved elsewhere, which is why their right to continue renting the apartment has been challenged.
CAMERA Prompts NPR Correction on Annexation Claim
After contact from CAMERA, National Public Radio (NPR) has issued a correction to a March 7, 2017 broadcast of its “The Two-Way” program, headlined “Israel Approves Law to Block Entry to People Who Call For Boycotting Israel.” That report claimed, among other things, “Settlements [in the West Bank]…are on land annexed by Israel nearly 50 years ago that Palestinians want as part of a future state [emphasis added].”
However, as CAMERA pointed out to NPR staff, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) was not annexed by Israel after it gained control of the territory as a result of its successful defense in the Arab-initiated Six-Day War.
Commendably, NPR quickly corrected the reference on March 13, 2017 and added text noting: "A previous version of this story referred to settlements on land annexed by Israel in 1967. Israel captured the land but has not annexed the West Bank."
NPR's story also misleadingly described the goals of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. NPR wrongly claimed “The BDS movement aims to put economic pressure on Israel in support of Palestinian independence." However, as CAMERA told NPR, this definition is misleading; many BDS movement leaders—including the organization's self-described founder, Omar Barghouti—have stated that the purpose of the movement is not in support of Palestinian independence, but rather for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Media discovers ever more inventive ways to exonerate Arab terrorists

More anti-Semitic hate from a Canadian imam
As originally reported in CIJ News, Sheikh Abdiqani Mursal, an imam at Toronto’s Masjid Al Hikma mosque, read a passage from the Hadith called “Turmoil And Portents Of The Last Hour.”
From this passage, the imam read the following words purportedly spoken by the Prophet Muhammad, then recorded by his followers after his death:
“You will fight against the Jews and you will kill them until even a stone would say: Come here, Muslim, there is a Jew (hiding himself behind me); kill him.”
Similar to the “filthy Jew” talk at mosques in Toronto and Montreal, the antisemitism isn’t being spewed because the imam has an issue with Israel, or is sympathetic to the Palestinians.
Hatred of Jews is baked into their scripture and these Imams are reading what they believe to be the unquestionable narrations of the final prophet of God, Muhammad.
Islam purports to be the final revelation of God, that we are not allowed to question or reform, and that is where its inherent problem of incompatibility with Western values begins.
MORE antisemitic hate from Canadian imam


Google condemned by MPs after refusing to ban anti-Semitic YouTube video by ex-KKK leader
Google has been condemned by an MP for refusing to ban a video by a former Ku Klux Klan leader called “Jewish People Admit Organising White Genocide”.
Yvette Cooper, the chairwoman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, expressed disbelief when the internet giant’s vice president said the recording – posted by Holocaust denier David Duke – did not “breach our guidelines”.
The 15-minute YouTube clip accuses “Zionists” of having “ethnically cleansed the Palestinians” and planning to do “the same thing to Europeans and Americans”.
Ms Cooper told Google’s Peter Barron: “You allow David Duke to upload an entire video which is all about malicious and hateful comments about Jewish people.
“How on earth is that not a breach of your own guidelines? I think most people would be appalled by that video and think it goes against all standards of public decency in this country.”
Dracula the ‘Wandering Jew,’ and other unknown facets of Irish lit in NY-bound exhibition
In Irish writer Charles Maturin’s 1820 Gothic novel, a young student named John Melmoth discovers his devilish ancestor was a mythological “wanderer.”
Using the stereotype of the Jewish biblical character who persecuted Jesus on way to his crucifixion, in the Anglican clergyman’s “Melmoth the Wanderer,” the ancestor sold his soul to Satan in return for 150 years of life. Now, he regrets his pact and roams the earth in search of someone who will take his place.
In its day, Maturin’s “Wandering Jew” character was so influential that it is believed to have been the template for Irish author Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” This fascinating little-known fact and many other tidbits can be gleaned by visitors to the traveling exhibition, “Representations of Jews in Irish Literature,” which has shown at locations throughout Ireland.
On a day this past February, an Irish 5th Year class from St Angela’s School, Ursuline Convent visited the exhibition at the Luke Wadding Library at the Waterford Institute of Technology. The students spent time reading the texts and looking at the images on the panels organized by chronology and theme.
Many, like 16-year-old Orla Charles, were most excited to discover that the biblical Wandering Jew was the inspiration for Stoker’s “Dracula.”
“I had no idea about any of the writings about Jews that contributed to things like Dracula. I thought that was so interesting,” she said.
London artist apologizes for ‘Beware of Jews’ sign
A British artist who hung a “Beware of Jews” traffic-style sign in a heavily ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in London has apologized to the local Jewish community after a neighborhood watch reported the image to police as a hate crime.
The image inside the triangular sign indicating a road hazard depicts the silhouette of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man in traditional clothing and was discovered near a synagogue in Stamford Hill on Monday.
The neighborhood watch program called Shomrim told local media the sign was a cause for concern for the local Jewish community, and local MPs condemned the image as “disgusting,” “unacceptable” and “despicable.”
On Wednesday, the freelance photographer and artist who made the sign told The Guardian that it was part of a wider art project commenting on the city’s diverse communities, and not an anti-Semitic statement.
“It was a project about crossing the road … how everyone is different, everyone has an identity. There is not only one sign in the street. I put more signs up in the street, but only this one got noticed. I am sorry for any offense caused,” Franck Allais told the paper.
Allais said he was “left shaken” by the uproar his artwork had caused.
Caller threatens to kill Melbourne Jewish gym owner
An anonymous caller threatened Tuesday to shoot an Australian-born Jewish gym owner in the head and told him to leave the country.
The call came into the off-site reception of IDF Training, a gym in Melbourne run by Avi Yemini, who served in the Israeli army. He now teaches the IDF martial art, Krav Maga, and has made a name for himself as a staunchly pro-Israel advocate and a critic of Muslims and immigrants.
“Is he the ex-IDF bloke?’ the caller asked, according to the Daily Mail Australia.
“Yeah, 100 percent,” the receptionist answered.
“So he knows how to shoot Palestinians?” the caller went on.
“I’m not too sure, to be honest with you,” came the reply.
The caller then launched into an expletive-filled rant, calling Yemini a “f**kin’ c**ksuckin’ zionist” and saying, “I wanna learn how to shoot, because I wanna shoot him in the f**kin’ head.”
Detroit pro-Israel website hacked with anti-Semitic messages
The website for the metropolitan Detroit area’s Walk for Israel was hacked and peppered with hate-filled and anti-Semitic expressions.
The messages appeared on the site’s home page for about three hours on Tuesday, according to local reports.
Thousands of people, both Jews and non-Jews, participate in the march, which is marking its 12th year.
The West Bloomfield Police Department is investigating the incident and could involve the FBI, according to reports.
Andre Douville, CEO of the Walk for Israel, told the CBS affiliate in Detroit that he began getting phone calls at around noon on Tuesday telling him there was a problem with the website
BBC: ‘Typically British‘ fish & chips introduced by Jews
Think British food, and you’re bound to conjure up an image of fish and chips.
Think again.
According to the BBC, that much-loved grease ball wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper is less Etonian and more Estonian.
Yes, fish and chips were brought to Old Blighty by the Jews.
Historian Denise Phillips told the first episode in a new BBC program ‘The Best of British Takeaways’ broadcast Tuesday that the recipe for fried fish came to the UK with Jewish refugees from eastern Europe in the 1800s.
Those Jews opened what were called fried fish warehouses, adapting an original recipe for fish that was coated in breadcrumbs and cooked on Fridays to be eaten cold on Shabbat.
The fish warehouses were mentioned in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, which was serialized between 1837 and 1839.
Some say a Jewish immigrant from eastern Europe, Joseph Malin, was the first to serve fish with chips in his warehouse in London’s Bow neighborhood in 1860.
Macklemore, LP to light up Live Park in Rishon
The musical summer of 2017 in Israel isn’t only going to be about hitmakers of the past. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and co-headliner LP – two current chart busters – will be converging on Live Park in Rishon Lezion on July 18.
The 33-year-old Macklemore, born Benjamin Hammond Haggerty, has been at the top of the hip hop game since his 2012 collaboration with producer Lewis resulted in number one hits – “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us” – around the world.
The pair won four Grammy Awards at the 2014 ceremony, including Best New Artist, Best Rap Album (The Heist), Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance (“Thrift Shop”).
Their second album, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made, was released last year.
Macklemore has tackled topical issues, like LGBT rights on the song “Same Love” and last year’s “Drug Dealer” about his battles with addiction, as well as “Wednesday Morning,” released after the 2016 US election results.
Intel CEO: We think of ourselves as an Israeli company as much as a US company
Intel’s $15 billion plans to acquire Jerusalem’s Mobileye not only demonstrate the company’s belief in Israeli innovation, but also position the country to become the global leader in autonomous driving, according to the chip giant’s CEO, Brian Krzanich.
“We think of ourselves as an Israeli company as much as a US company,” Krzanich said at a Jerusalem press conference on Tuesday evening at the Prime Minister’s Office.
The day before, Intel declared its intentions to acquire Israel’s autonomous driving company Mobileye for about $15 billion – the biggest deal to hit the country’s hi-tech industry. Alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Economy Minister Eli Cohen and Mobileye’s leaders Ziv Aviram and Amnon Shashua, Krzanich stressed how the deal will enable Israel to accelerate and steer the international autonomous vehicle industry.
“This is one of the largest acquisitions in Israel, but it’s also the second-largest acquisition effort that Intel has done in history of the company,” he said.
The firms announced a definitive agreement on Monday for Intel to acquire Mobileye, a global leader in the development of computer vision and machine learning for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous driving. According to the agreement, an Intel subsidiary will launch a tender to acquire all of the outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye for $63.54 per share in cash, amounting to an equity value of about $15.3b. and an enterprise value of $14.7b.
While Intel is acquiring Mobileye, the companies have decided to base their future autonomous driving operations at Mobileye’s Jerusalem headquarters, with the company’s cofounder, chairman and CTO Amnon Shashua leading operations there.
Israel falls to Japan, ending miracle run at baseball tournament
Israel’s miracle run at the 2017 World Baseball Classic came to an end Wednesday afternoon, as the blue-and-white team fell to Japan 8-3, knocking it out of the tournament after two weeks of play.
Israel entered the tournament as heavy underdogs, surprising the world, and its namesake country, by going undefeated in the first round and beating Cuba in the second round, becoming the WBC’s unlikely darlings.
Consecutive losses to the Netherlands and Japan, though, proved too much to overcome, and the team was forced to hang up its gloves without a trip to the championship rounds in Los Angeles.
Israel held Japan scoreless until the fifth inning, helped by the stifling pitching of Josh Zeid. Things fell apart in the sixth, though, as Japan scored five in front of a sold-out home crowd in Tokyo and never looked back.
Israel’s bats fell mostly silent over the first eight innings, before showing some life in the ninth.
Requiem for a Team: Israel Eliminated by Japan in World Baseball Classic
Team Israel’s unlikely adventure in the World Baseball Classic came to an end today in Tokyo. Facing two-time WBC champions Japan, who were undefeated and ranked 1st coming into the tournament, Israel fell 8-3. The loss officially eliminated them from the competition’s second round, where they went 1-2, beating Cuba but losing to the Netherlands and finally Japan.
The game was tight until the 6th inning. Team Israel starter Josh Zeid, who had carried the team on his back in the qualifiers and closed out multiple wins in the Classic, threw four scoreless innings, shutting down an elite Japanese line-up. He was followed by Dylan Axelrod, who sent Japan down in order in the 5th, but unraveled in the 6th. When that inning ended, Japan was leading 5-0, and would never look back. Israel did not go quietly into the night, though, rallying in the 9th for three runs, to make the final score 8-3.
The loss marked the end of a remarkable run for Team Israel, who entered the tournament ranked 41st, but proceeded to beat South Korea (3), Chinese Taipei (4), the Netherlands (9), and Cuba (5), before losing their final two contests. They did it without a single active Major Leaguer on their roster. Instead, the team’s motley crew of minor league prospects, retired ballplayers, and journeymen bested teams featuring some of MLB’s top talent. Along the way, the group earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for the development of baseball in Israel, inspired Jews around the world, and carved their name into the annals of great Jewish sports achievements.



We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.