Tuesday, July 25, 2017
The Words They Won’t Say: ‘Arab Murders Israelis’
There are three words the headline-writers at The New York Times and Washington Post just can’t bring themselves to say:
“Arab Murders Israelis.”
Last Friday, three Arab terrorists murdered two Israeli policemen near the Temple Mount. The Washington Post used this headline: “2 Israeli Policemen are Killed Near Old City Gate.” Who killed them? A drunk driver? A bank robber? And why was it important to announce in the headline that the killing happened “near an Old City Gate?” How many of the Post’s readers could possible know where that is?
The New York Times’s headline was not much better: “In Attack at Jerusalem Holy Site, Israeli Police Officers and Assailants Are Killed.” Notice how the killers are “assailants” – not Arabs, not murderers, certainly not terrorists.
A headline writer with no bias would have simply stated the facts, something along the lines of: “Arab Terrorists Murder Two Israelis in Jerusalem.”
But the Times and the Post couldn’t do that. And there’s a reason.
The editors of the Times and the Post are strongly sympathetic to the Palestinian Arab cause. They want to see a Palestinian state established as soon as possible. Despite hard evidence to the contrary, they think Israel is the obstacle to Middle East peace. The Times and the Post believe that Israel’s polices are to blame for “provoking” Arab hostility and violence.
Truth and Deception: Calling Out Linda Sarsour on Al Aqsa
How many ways can Linda Sarsour misrepresent the volatile situation between Israel and the Palestinians? And why do we even care?
Sarsour, a Palestinian activist, is the darling of the left, the feminist movement and the BDS movement. Information she spreads is taken at face value; no one usually bothers to check the facts.
Because of this, her comments matter. One of her latest disingenuous Facebook posts shows Muslims in Israel praying on the street because, in Sarsour’s words, they have been (#1 deception) “denied access to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque in their own homeland.”
Sarsour then praises her Palestinian brothers for this act of “non-violent resistance,” where they are (#2 deception) “met with tear gas and rubber bullets” from Israeli police.
She then paints her people, the Palestinians, as victims, saying the world powers (#3 deception) “continue to turn a blind eye to the blatant injustice against and the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
Let us navigate through the minefield of these distorted remarks, which has become the common narrative of Islamists worldwide.
As for the “non-violent resistance” Sarsour so lauds, Sarsour failed to mention a major terrorist attack that directly resulted from Palestinian incitement over the issue of the metal detectors (their proof that Israel wants to take over Al Aqsa).
On Friday night, as a Jewish family sat down to eat their Sabbath meal, three members of the family were slaughtered in a knife attack by a 19-year old Palestinian who had just written on his Facebook page, “Take your weapons and resist…. I only have a knife and it will answer the call of Al-Aqsa…. I know I am going and will not return.”
Sarsour says her beloved, protesting Palestinians brothers “remain steadfast and teach us life, determination and patience.” Comments to which I only have three words: God save us.
California Imam Prays: 'Annihilate' Every Jew 'Down To The Very Last One'
Many Muslims around the world appear to be incredibly angry over Israel’s decision to implement extra security precautions at the entrance of the al-Aqsa mosque in the wake of an Islamic terrorist attack targeting Israeli-Druze police officers. How angry? Genocidal-level angry.
On Friday, an imam in California (yes, that left-wing tolerant west coast state in America, not some remote region of Pakistan) called for the utter annihilation of every last Jew.
“Liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews,” prayed Imam Ammar Shahin of the Islamic Center of Davis in northern California. “Annihilate them down to the very last one.”
He continued, raising his voice as he spoke to a receptive audience of devout California Muslims: “Oh Allah, make this happen by our hands. Let us play a part in this.”
A video of the genocidal sermon was posted on the Davis Masjid YouTube channel and subsequently translated by watchdog organization MEMRI.
Watch the imam’s horrifying call to arms:
California Sermon: Imam Cites Hadith, Prays for Annihilation of Jews, Calls to Liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque from 'Filth' https://t.co/g7xsCtwcAw
— Mordechai Sones (@MordechaiSones) July 24, 2017
Fmr Colin Powell Aide on MSNBC: Biggest Threat to Christians in Mid East — Jews
Retired United States Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and the former chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was secretary of state told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Sunday that Jews pose the biggest threat to Christians in the Middle East.Betraying Rosa Parks (scroll down)
Wilkerson criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for provoking danger in the region.
“The pressure is building incrementally,” Wilkerson said. “Bibi Netanyahu and his government have been moving to make sure that the pressure builds -- the tension builds. The ultimate goal with regard to the mosque is to drive the Palestinians and Arabs in general out completely.”
Wilkerson continued with no pushback from Reid:
“I recall that when we were working with then Yasser Arafat -- in Ramallah in 2002 or '03 as I recall -- a Catholic bishop actually told me that the biggest enemy for him -- for Christians -- in that region was not the Arabs, it was the Jews. So we have a real problem with this government. We don't have a problem with Israelis in general, but, with this government which they don't seem to be able to rid themselves of.”
Reid responded, “And we know the annexation of the West Bank and of all of Jerusalem has been a goal of the Likud government -- of the current Israeli government. Jared Kushner is supposedly in charge of this -- in charge of Middle East-peace. And I'm wondering if Netanyahu's conception that they have a free hand now -- a Washington that now completely backs them up no matter what they do -- has an impact on the way that the Netanyahu government then behaves.”
Writing in The Boston Globe last week, Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke criticized a bill being considered in the Massachusetts Legislature that would bar the state from granting contracts worth more than $10,000 to anyone who discriminates against any group or entity on the basis of “race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation.” Though the bill makes no reference to any particular cause — its language is wholly neutral — it drew the opposition of activists who support the left-wing BDS movement, which clamors for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel and Israelis.The Epic Failure of the BDS Cultural Boycott
Franke makes no secret of her animus toward Israel. She has publicly described anti-Israel terrorism — like last Friday’s bloodbath, in which three Israeli Jews were stabbed to death at their Sabbath dinner table by a Palestinian terrorist who burst into their home — as “ anti-colonial resistance.” She is an outspoken supporter of BDS, so her condemnation of the proposed Massachusetts legislation comes as no surprise.
But in the course of criticizing the bill, Franke invokes the heroic civil rights icon, Rosa Parks: She writes of meeting with Parks’s lawyer to discuss “the role of the Montgomery bus boycott in breaking up racial segregation,” and she claims that “passage of antiboycott legislation here in Massachusetts would betray the legacy of Rosa Parks.”
Would Rosa Park agree? Since she died in 2005, we can’t ask her directly. But we don’t have to: During her lifetime, she was a vigorous supporter of the Jewish state of Israel, and a public opponent of anti-Israel boycotts.
In 1975, Parks joined a roster of distinguished black leaders — including A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Lionel Hampton, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Shirley Chisholm, Coretta Scott King, Leontyne Price, and Barbara Jordan — in signing an open declaration of admiration and respect for Israel. Organized as the Black Americans to Support Israel Committee, they took out a full-page ad in The New York Times that opened with the words: “Zionism is not racism, but the legitimate expression of the Jewish people’s self-determination.”
The headlines have focused for weeks on the campaign by Roger Waters to persuade Radiohead to cancel its Israel gig. The self-appointed musical boycotter-in-chief has been no more successful with Thom Yorke than with hundreds of other performers who have ignored him. In fact, many are now more comfortable joining in the condemnation of the anti-Semitic boycott. Just last week, Nasreen Qadri, a Muslim Israeli Arab singer who will perform with Radiohead, blasted Waters and the other BDS advocates for actions detrimental to the cause of peace and tolerance.Nassau county executive attempts to sever stadium contract with Waters
The cultural boycott got a lot of attention and the image of success when its initial call to boycott Israel was answered by a handful of acts, most notably Elvis Costello, Gil Scott-Heron and the Pixies. One good indication of how complete the failure of BDS has been is that the Pixies later performed in Israel and are expected to follow-up that 2014 concert with another this year.
The handful of boycotters have been almost entirely B- or C-listers while the A-list, which includes Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Elton John, Rihanna, Rod Stewart and hundreds of others have played to tens of thousands of Israeli concert goers. According to a list compiled by the Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), along with my own research, nearly 1,000 artists have performed in Israel in defiance of the boycotters.
CCFP, a group comprised of leading figures in the entertainment business, has played a critical behind-the-scenes role in working with artists and their representatives to ensure they understand the deleterious impact of the cultural boycott and the nefarious motivations of the BDS campaigners. CCFP has helped mobilize the entertainment community to oppose the BDS movement.
Long Island lawmakers are determined to stop Pink Floyd frontman and BDS activist Roger Waters from performing at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum this September.Far-Left Extremists Force Israeli Bookshop to Close in Berlin
“We are still trying to sever the contract,” said Assistant County Executive Ed Ward. Outgoing Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano, who was recently indicted on federal corruption charges, has been urged to ban the artist from performing.
According to local legislators and Nassau County Attorney Carnell T. Foskey, because the coliseum is county-owned, the concert would violate local law 3-2016, which prohibits the county from doing business with any company participating in the economic boycott of Israel. This is the first time the law is being tested.
The controversy began when the Republican legislator Howard J. Kopel, who represents a large Jewish population, asked Foskey to investigate whether the concert was in compliance with the law, which was passed in May of 2016.
“Beyond the legality of this, this person [Waters] is a slap in the face to the entire community. When we passed the law we were expressing the opinion of the 1.4 million constituents in the county,” Kopel said.
A pair of Israeli’s in Berlin have been forced to close their bookshop after receiving multiple threats from far-left Antifa extremists because they wanted to hold a study group on a thinker who inspired Italian fascism in the 1920s.5 BDS activists prevented from boarding flight to Israel
The two young men, named Amir and Doron, ran the bookshop up until the threats from the far-left extremists made the business unprofitable. The threats came after the pair, along with an American friend, announced a study of futurist thinker Julius Evola, an Italian intellectual who was involved with the fascist movement, Die Welt reports.
The bookshop, named “Topics” as all the books are arranged by topic, was located in the Neukölln area of Berlin, a stronghold of the far-left extremist Antifa scene. In a Facebook post, the pair says that the Antifa extremists were upset that they would dare hold a workshop on a fascist thinker in an area that is seen as a stronghold of the left.
The real reason for the workshop, according to the shop owners, was to examine the influence of Julius Evola on the “alt-right” movement in America to better understand it. The post led to many negative comments from Antifa supporters who were against the proposed workshop.
Both of the Israelis are the grandsons of Holocaust survivors and though anti-Semitism is rising in Berlin, particularly in the public school system, it is unknown if the far-left extremists targetted them for being Israelis.
Five members of an interfaith delegation to Israel were prevented from boarding their flight from Washington, D.C., reportedly due to their activism on behalf of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.Despite a forecast for protests, a Grossman play premieres in NY uneventfully
The Jewish Voice for Peace organization said in a statement Monday that the delegation tried to check into its Lufthansa flight at Dulles International Airport, only to be told that the Israeli government had ordered the airline not to let the five passengers aboard.
In March, the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, amended the Law of Entry to prevent leaders of the BDS movement from being allowed into Israel. The amendment applies to organizations that take consistent and significant action against Israel through BDS, as well as the leadership and senior activists of those groups.
Lufthansa spokesman Tal Muscal confirmed that the delegation members were not allowed to fly per the Israeli government’s request. Lufthansa was not made aware of the reason for the order.
Muscal said the airline must obey government requests like these to block passengers from boarding flights.
What if they threw a protest and nobody came?ECAJ Open Letter to Sen. Singh’s troubling parliamentary speech.
The annual Lincoln Center Festival got a bit of additional publicity earlier this month when The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel (Adalah-NY) published an open letter with 70 artists calling for the cancellation of one of its productions. The festival’s outstanding line-up includes Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet, a concert of batuku music from Cape Verde and an oud trio paying tribute to the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. But there are also four performances of Israeli author David Grossman’s “To The End of the Land.”
Adapted by the Ha’Bima National Theater and the Cameri Theater of Tel Aviv by Hanin Snir, the play (presented in Hebrew with projected English supertitles) is based on Grossman’s novel about a mother’s psychological duress while her son serves in the IDF during the Second Intifada in 2002.
It is far from an inflammatory work and Grossman is an outspoken critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a high-profile peace activist. But that was of no consequence to the Adalah group, who felt that anything on the receiving end of Israeli government funding was tainted and should be blocked from entering US soil.
The irony is that the list of extremely talented American artists who put their name to this boycott are the exact sort of people who denounce the lack of arts funding in the United States.
In contrast, you spoke of the Israelis only in abstract and impersonal terms, without any similar recognition of their humanity, achievements, aspirations, legitimate concerns and feelings. You described Israelis as “soldiers with big guns” and used the word “illegal” in relation to Israelis on 12 occasions. In short, your speech dehumanised and degraded Israelis, depicting them collectively as one-dimensional criminals.Vigil at Reem's Oakland. July 22
Nowhere did you describe the way Hamas rocket attacks have targeted Jewish kindergartens and nurseries, among other civilian targets in southern Israel; the suffering of Israeli children in southern communities who are regularly forced to scurry into bomb shelters; the psychological impact of terrorism on Israeli society; or the trauma of a nation that has been put through countless wars and waves of terrorist attacks directed primarily at innocent civilians. Nowhere did you refer to the illegality of Palestinian terrorism, of PA-sanctioned violence, of the war crimes of Hamas in deliberately targeting civilians while using their own civilians as human shields, or in employing child soldiers to build attack tunnels and summarily executing suspected collaborators and political enemies.
Your speech is also entirely uncritical of the Palestinian leadership, which is widely known for its endemic corruption, authoritarianism and support for terrorism. You referred to convicted terrorists, with the blood of civilians on their hands, as “political prisoners” and expressed solidarity with them.
You described a future Palestinian state as a “pluralistic, democratic society”, oblivious to the scandalous treatment of women, LGBT people and religious and ethnic minorities by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in the Palestinian Territories. You have also swept under the carpet the strong support for a theocratic form of government by many Palestinians. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, believes in the sovereignty of God and the primacy of religious authority over the secular.
While Reem's California patrons chanted a call for the genocide of the Jewish nation, progressive community members, including a former delegate for Bernie Sanders expressed their heartfelt desire for peace.The Coming Terrorist Diaspora
These are the people Jewish Voice for peace and their unsavory allies characterized as the alt-right, btw
From the side of peace and light:
"As long as this community continues to bless terrorists by putting their images on the wall there will never be peace in Oakland or in your hearts"
"By embracing terrorist and giving them platforms your are destroying the credibility of peaceful Muslims everywhere. "
Who are the real "progressives" here? People calling out hate, people yearning for co-existence and mutual respect, or those calling for the genocide of the Jewish people?
Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, Thomas Joscelyn argued that the recent string of battlefield victories against Islamic State (IS) does not mean the organization is on the brink of collapse. He pointed to IS’s successful rebound from near-defeat in the years between 2011 and 2014, its international infrastructure, and the fact that U.S. intelligence has repeatedly underestimated the strength of its forces:How the Modernization of the Middle East Went Terribly Wrong
Since November 2014, when the self-styled caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi first announced the establishment of “provinces” around the globe, Islamic State’s membership grew outside of Iraq and Syria. This further complicates any effort to estimate its overall size. Some of these “provinces” were nothing more than small terror networks, while others evolved into capable insurgency organizations in their own right. . . . Although it is impossible to judge the extent of Islamic State’s cohesion, as much of the data is not available, there is at least some connectivity between the group’s leadership and its “provinces” elsewhere. . . .
While their fortunes may rise or fall at any given time, this global network of Islamic State “provinces” will remain a formidable problem for the foreseeable future. Not only are they capable of killing large numbers of people in the countries they operate in, this structure also makes tracking international terrorist travel more difficult. For instance, counterterrorism officials have tied plots in Europe to operatives in Libya. This indicates that some of IS’s “external plotters,” who are responsible for targeting the West, are not stationed in Iraq and Syria. The U.S.-led air campaign has disrupted the Islamic State’s “external operations” capacity by killing a number of jihadists in this wing of the organization. But others live.
Reminiscing about life as a journalist in Tehran in the 1970s, Amir Taheri recalls the advice of the numerous foreign intellectuals who visited the once-cosmopolitan city, which could be summed in one word: “modernize!” The Middle East has by no means failed to modernize; however, Taheri argues, it has done so in all the wrong ways:NYT Whines: Russian Jews Don't Believe Our Russia Narrative!
Traditions that had provided a moral compass for centuries were now dismissed as cumbersome if not a sure sign of backwardness. Old institutions such as tribes, guilds, Sufi orders, clerical hierarchies, and family networks that had counterbalanced the power of the state were dissolved or weakened, leaving power concentrated in a few hands at the center of government. The aim was to “Westernize” as quickly as possible even if that meant the destruction of the indigenous culture which now appeared atrophied or degenerate. . . .
Another thing [the apostles of modernization] ignored was that in our neck of the woods, that is to say the Middle East, the machinery of state had modernized itself by enhancing its powers and developing new modes of control, manipulation, and repression. That, in turn, had led to the Westernization of part of traditional society that now used an essentially Western narrative in its struggle against the established order.
“[Russian Jews] should know better” than to dismiss narratives pushed by The New York Times (NYT) regarding “the brazen Russian intrusion into American politics that has been certified by American intelligence agencies," argues the "paper of record."BBC’s ME correspondents revert to partisan terminology for Temple Mount – part one
A Monday-published op-ed at The Gray Lady expresses frustration with Americans of Russian Jewish background — a reliably anti-leftist demographic bloc — who reject the narrative of “Russia cyber-scheming in America before the election to help [Donald Trump].”
Residents of New York City’s Brighton Beach — one of the world’s biggest hubs of Russian Jews outside of Russia — is the focus of the NYT op-ed on Russian Jewish hostility to Democrats:
The puzzle in Brighton Beach is much the same as in other parts of the Trump base: Why is there no great alarm from President Trump or his supporters about the brazen Russian intrusion into American politics that has been certified by American intelligence agencies? The question is even starker when posed to old Soviet émigrés who should know better as they enjoy the well-stocked shops and flowing freedom along Brighton Beach Avenue.
Russian Jews are overly anti-communist in their politics, suggests the NYT, going so far as rejecting ostensibly good-faith “government service proposals by Democrats”:
‘Anything that remotely smells of Communism they hate,” said Mr. Kliger (a sociologist who is director of Russian Jewish community affairs for the American Jewish Committee), noting how even the focus on government service proposals by Democrats can be mistrusted. Thus, partisan zealots labeled Hillary Clinton not just the familiar Trumpian ‘crook,’ but a ‘socialist” as well — the hated S-word in Brighton Beach.
As we see, in addition to promoting partisan PLO approved terminology to describe Temple Mount, Knell completely erased from her account of the installation of metal detectors the crucial fact that the three terrorists (whom she also deletes entirely from the story) who murdered the two Israeli policemen on July 14th did so using weapons which had been smuggled into al Aqsa mosque by an accomplice.BBC ignores two more missile attacks from Gaza
She also failed to explain to listeners what the ‘status quo’ on Temple Mount entails and to clarify that Palestinian claims of “changes” are baseless, while refraining from telling audiences about the copious incitement from the Waqf and official Palestinian sources that sparked the violence.
However, Knell was not the only Middle East correspondent to compromise BBC impartiality by prioritising PLO recommended language over the standard BBC terminology to describe Temple Mount in a report on July 21st – as will be seen in part two of this post.
Early on the morning of July 23rd a missile was fired from the Beit Hanoun region in the Gaza Strip towards Israel. While the missile was originally thought to have exploded in mid-air, its remnants were later found in Israeli territory.Relations between Israel and Europe Are Better Than They Seem
Neither of those attacks received any coverage from the BBC.
Since the beginning of this year twelve separate incidents of missile fire from either the Gaza Strip or the Sinai Peninsula have taken place. The BBC’s English language services have not informed audiences of any of those attacks.
Popular European opinion about Israel has been increasingly negative since the 1970s. Moreover, EU officials as well as European politicians and diplomats are often eager to condemn the Jewish state, and left-wing political anti-Semitism is at its post-cold-war zenith. Nonetheless, argue Toby Greene and Jonathan Rynhold, Jerusalem’s relations with the Continent are, in many ways, flourishing. (Free registration required.)Nothing to Connect Them Except Hatred: The Torcy-Cannes Gang and the Problem of Anti-Semitic Islamist Violence in France
Imports from Israel to the EU hovered steady between 2011 and 2016 at around $14.8 billion—a historic high—and last year, European governments bought record levels of defense equipment from Israel. Israel’s reputation as the so-called start-up nation is much admired on the Continent, as are its energetic academic and creative exports. All of this has helped restore some of Israel’s soft power. . . .
Political leaders who have opposed Israeli policies have found their ideological positions tempered by material interests. Greece’s far-left party Syriza, for example, was deeply hostile to Israel while in opposition, but has deepened Greece’s economic and strategic cooperation with Israel since taking power. . . .
[Furthermore], terror attacks in European cites, searing images of Islamic State butchery, and waves of Syrian refugees pouring into Europe have made it harder to sustain the idea that Israel is the source of Middle East instability, or the poison in relations between Islam and the West. European states especially value Israeli intelligence on the threats posed by Sunni jihadist groups (and to a lesser extent, on such Shiite militant groups as Hizballah). Moreover, when jihadists target European cities, it bolsters the Israeli narrative that frames Palestinian violence as driven by ideological extremism, as opposed to grievance at the occupation.
Nothing to Connect Them Except Hatred: The Torcy-Cannes Gang and the Problem of Anti-Semitic Islamist Violence in FranceNetanyahu, Georgian PM Celebrate 25 Years of Diplomatic Ties in Jerusalem
In 2011, 67.4 percent of the under-18 population of Sarcelles was of immigrant descent, compared with 19.7 percent for the French population at large. One third of the town’s population was Jewish, which is how Sarcelles acquired the nickname in France of the “small Jerusalem.” The town’s mayor from 1995 on had been Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who had conquered the town with the help of his wife, the journalist star Anne Sinclair, and the then all-powerful Socialist Party. His politics of harmonious cohabitation between the city’s various communities had been less charitably labeled vote-catching by some of his critics. In any case, in 2012, when the attack occurred, DSK’s political career—smashed by the accusations of sexual assaults against hotel maid Nafisatou Diallo in New York and the journalist Tristane Banon in Paris—was already in shambles, and so was the Socialist Party. In Sarcelles, there were concerns that, deprived of its leader, the town’s harmonious multiculturalism would go south. (Anti-Jewish riots would, in fact, explode two years later, during the summer of 2014.)
Does this local context partly account for the police reluctance to label the Naouri attack an anti-Semitic act? “When I said to the police officer who was interviewing me that I was the victim of an anti-Semitic aggression,” recalled Joël Benguigui, “he simply refused to write the word down. He said that at this point, no evidence could point out in that direction. Which I found especially amazing since he was recording my own statement, not discussing the result of an investigation.”
Violent anti-Semitic acts were on the rise in France since the early 2000s but the murder of three Jewish children by Mohamed Merah in Toulouse the previous March had marked some sort of a turning point in public awareness. Anti-Semitism was becoming a burning subject that was better left untouched. Besides, nobody had been killed in the Naouri store. For a while, the local police as well as the media buried the story.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed his Georgian counterpart, Giorgi Kvirikashvili, to Jerusalem on Monday, saying their countries are “are kindred souls living in a very difficult part of the world … that show a big future.”1,600-year-old stone wine press found in Ramat Negev
While 2017 marked 25 years of diplomatic ties between the two nations, Netanyahu remarked that there “are 2600 years that connect our people through the span of Jewish history in Georgia.” He also acknowledged the presence of 100,000 citizens of Georgian extraction in Israel.
“We’re both vibrant countries,” Netanyahu told his guest, “eager to seize the future, secure our homelands and ensure that we march on the march of progress and have a natural sympathy between the peoples both through the human bridge of Georgians who now live in Israel but also of, I would say, common sentiments and sympathies and a deep appreciation for each one’s culture.”
Kvirikashvili thanked Netanyahu for his greeting and noted, “the 26 centuries, as you mentioned, prime minister, of harmonious coexistence of our friendly nations is deeply rooted in our national memory. The personal ties and the relations between the Jewish and Georgian people are truly exemplary.”
Maintenence work in the Ramat Negev regional council led to the accidental discovery of a spacious stone wine press from the early Byzantine period.Secret team of German Jews helped US Army defeat Hitler
The discovery was made as part of a salvage operation led by Yoram Haimi, the archeologist in charge of the South-Negev region, together with Yeshiva students from 'Belevav Shalem' in Yeruham.
Together, they unearthed a 40 x 40 meters wine press (131 x 131 feet) complete with a stone pressing floor, a separation pit and a fermentation pool that could contain six and half cubic meters (6,500 Liters) of wine.
Haimi, who is in charge of an ongoing dig in Poland aimed to unearth the history of the Sobibor extermination camp, took a moment to speak to the Post while supervising that the ancient wine press is kept hidden until the local council decides what to do with it.
"Winemaking at the time was done using human labor," he said. "The workers would step on the grapes, then the pulp would be delivered to a basin where the clear liquid would surface and the dregs sink. This clear liquid is the tirush," unfermented wine most Israelis associate with childhood Seder meals in which they were given the sweet, non-alcoholic tirush, to drink the traditional four cups of wine.
"The tirush would be moved to fermentation pots. Negev wines were held at a very high esteem at the time, like the boutique wines of today," said Haimi.
The U.S. Army's elite group known as the Ritchie Boys - named for the camp in Maryland where they trained -were German Jews who helped bring down Hitler's regime by interrogating German POW's
The surviving Ritchie Boys were interviewed in the new book Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the US Army to Fight Hitler
There were 1,985 members who trained in the remote mountains near Hagerstown, Maryland to gather information from Nazis in their native tongue
Some fled Germany after being forced into labor camps but returned to their homeland to fight back after traveling to America
The surviving Ritchie Boys were interviewed in the new book Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the US Army to Fight Hitler
As members of the Army's Military Intelligence, they were prohibited from talking about their wartime training or service for years after the war ended
There were no reunions, no vets' organizations for these heroes, and their German accents – which they had learned to disguise while in service, made them unwelcome in U.S. veterans groups
