Wednesday, September 13, 2017
HELL FREEZES OVER: New York Times Defends Shapiro Against Leftists
On Tuesday, in a most unusual place, a column appeared that heartily defended Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, acknowledging him sympathetically as “that wildly exotic creature: a political conservative.” The column also mocked the idea of leftists calling Shapiro a “fascist,” and described him as “a 33-year-old who supports small government, religious liberty and free-market economics and opposes identity politics, abortion and Donald Trump.”Berkeley "Braces" For Ben Shapiro
So just where did this paean to Shapiro appear?
The New York Times.
Penned by Times columnist Bari Weiss, the column, titled, "A political conservative goes to Berkeley," noted the impending brouhaha at the University of California, Berkeley due to Shapiro’s speech on September 14, including the hilariously misguided letter to students and faculty members written by Paul Alivisatos, the university’s executive vice chancellor and provost, who offered counseling services for the victims of Shapiro’s supposed rampage through campus.
Weiss notes:
… the activist group Refuse Fascism, which has hailed the left-wing extremist antifa movement as “courageous,” has taken the lead in condemning Mr. Shapiro’s speech, calling him a “fascist” on campus fliers and declaring in a Facebook post that his goal was to “spread ugly fascist views dressed up in slick-talking ‘intellectual’ garb.”
Weiss acknowledges Shapiro can occasionally provoke hostility, mentioning that he “once brought a diaper to a campus speech to offer to ‘self-indulgent pathetic children who can’t handle anyone with an opposing point of view.’” She also notes the viral exchange (which has nearly 50 million views) in which Shapiro confronted the transgender issue by asking the student promulgating the transgender agenda, “Why aren’t you 60?”, although she prefers to elide that exchange in favor of the moment he asked the student, “If I call you a moose are you suddenly a moose?”
But Weiss points out that Shapiro, whom the protesters at UC Berkeley have insanely called a “white supremacist,” was brutally targeted by those same white supremacists and anti-Semites in 2016:
WATCH: Berkeley Protesters Claim Ben Shapiro Is The 'Architect' Of A 'Fascist Regime'
First, Berkeley tried protesting. Then, they tried pricing the College Republicans out of holding Ben Shapiro's speech on campus. Then, Antifa got involved. Once they realized The Daily Wire's fearless leader was still showing up, the offered counseling.
Now, the protesters are just flat-out lying.
On Thursday, the Secretary of the Berkeley College Republicans caught Shapiro protesters on video (it's not clear whether the protesters are also students), shouting through a bullhorn, accusing Ben of being the "architect" and "founder" of "this fascist ideological regime" (presumably the Trump/Pence Administration).
If it wren't caught on tape, it would be too crazy to believe.
Refuse Fascism: "@benshapiro one of the architects of the foundations of this ideological fascist regime." Full blown insanity. pic.twitter.com/c3k7Qgk1DT
— Bradley Devlin (@bradleydevlin) September 12, 2017
The first part of the student's speech is inaudible, but you can clearly pick up "... on the same day as Ben Shapiro, one of the architects and founders and ideological foundations of this fascist regime is speaking. Ben Shapiro, who says things like 'Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage.'"
The student goes on to encourage fellow Berkeley denizens to protest Shapiro (or worse — it's not clear exactly what the call to action is): "We are calling on people of conscience, that in this moment, this is your opportunity to take a stand. We will look back on history, on people who stood by and did nothing, who said these things have nothing to do with me."
Ruthie Blum: What Happened to the ADL?
In the months leading up to the U.S. presidential election in November 2016, a former director of the World Jewish Congress decried the direction in which the new head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was taking the international human rights group. In a series of columns, Isi Leibler -- a prominent Australian Israeli -- blasted ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, for turning the 100-year-old organization, whose mission is to monitor and expose anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, into a platform that "represents an echo chamber of left-wing Democratic politics."NGO Monitor: Human Right Watch Targets Israeli Banks for Economic Warfare
Leibler first took issue with Greenblatt's April 2016 address to the far-Left Jewish organization J Street, backed by anti-Israel billionaire George Soros.
Leibler wrote that Greenblatt "incorporated [in his speech] criticisms of Israel that were thoroughly inappropriate...[and] indirectly gave a seal of approval for the Obama administration to impose solutions on future borders that could dramatically compromise Israel's security."
Ironically, Greenblatt's rebuttal, in the form of a letter to the editor of The Jerusalem Post, illustrated Leibler's point. He not only defended J Street, referring to the people in the audience as "a group of deeply thoughtful college students whose commitment to Israel is genuine and whose passion on the issues is impressive;" he claimed that he had not been morally equating Israel and the Palestinians.
In a subsequent piece, Leibler called Greenblatt to task for having "lost the plot, behaving as though he remained employed by the Obama administration." Leibler cited the ADL's July 13, 2016 statement "welcoming the Republican Party platform on Israel," but expressing "disappoint[ment] that the platform draft departs from longstanding support of a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict... the only viable way to secure Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state."
As part of its ongoing BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) campaign against Israel, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report and press release targeting Israel banks. This represents HRW’s third major BDS initiative in 2017 alone, notes NGO Monitor.UK Communities Secretary Sajid Javid Attacks Israel Boycott
“Economic warfare against the Israeli financial system has long been a goal of anti-Israel activists, ,” said Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor at NGO Monitor. “It is also clear that HRW has timed the release of this publication to coincide with the preparation of the discriminatory UN Human Rights Council blacklist, currently being prepared by UN functionaries in conjunction with BDS groups like HRW.”
Under the leadership of Ken Roth, HRW was a major participant at the launch of BDS at the infamous Durban Conference in 2001, and Sarah Leah Whitson (Director of HRW’s Middle East division) participated in the first BDS rally in the United States in 2004. In recent years, HRW has pursued BDS at the United Nations against FIFA, quarries and real estate brokers.
NGO Monitor notes that HRW’s increased BDS activity follows the hiring of BDS activist Omar Shakir to head its Israel desk. In addition, HRW’s Israel/Palestine program received a donation in June 2017 from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, one of the main US funders of BDS.
“HRW’s pseudo-legal arguments and sophistry do not stand up to scrutiny and cannot create legal obligations where none exists,” added Ms. Herzberg. “BDS is not about human rights, and, this publication reflects HRW’s long-standing pattern of singling out Israel.”
In a blistering attack on those who promote a boycott of Israel, Mr Javid said: “I’ll be 100 per cent clear. I do not support calls for a boycott, my party does not support calls for a boycott. For all its bluster, the BDS campaign is most notable I think, for its lack of success.Devastating UK survey finds half of Britons agree with anti-Israel statements
“Trade is booming, tourism is soaring. The media campaign is full of sound and fury, but to the majority of Britain today it signifies nothing.
“As long as I’m in government, as long as I’m in politics, I will do everything in my power to fight back against those who seek to undermine Israel.”
Outlining measures taken by the government in recent years, he highlighted efforts to counter academic boycotts, and to stop local authorities “running their own mini foreign policies, dividing the communities that they seek to serve”.
The Westminster event, Balfour, Bias and Boycotts, was organised by the Board of Deputies, WJC and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Jews.
Mr Javid said rising antisemitism in Britain was “deeply disturbing” and he was personally committed to dealing with it.
“Let’s be honest, we are talking about antisemites, however many times they claim they are opposed to Zionism,” he said.
Nearly one in three Britons holds at least one anti-Semitic attitude and more than half endorse at least one hard-line anti-Israel statement, finds a major new study published today.UK study: those with strong anti-Israel views are dramatically more antisemitic than the general population
It also establishes an “unambiguous” link between anti-Semitism and hostility towards Israel – suggesting that the stronger the level of anti-Israel feeling, the more likely it is to be accompanied by anti-Semitic attitudes – and probes the attitudes of those who support the far-left and the far-right, as well as British Muslims.
But the report – the largest and most detailed survey of attitudes towards Jews and Israel ever conducted in Britain – also concludes that the proportion of what it terms “hardcore anti-Semites” in the population is small, while most Britons hold a favorable opinion of Jews and the vast majority do not harbor any anti-Semitic views. Moreover, it found that only 6% of Britons believe Israel has no right to exist, and less than 10% back the BDS movement.
“Levels of anti-Semitism in Great Britain are among the lowest in the world. British Jews constitute a religious and ethnic group that is seen overwhelmingly positively by the absolute majority of the British population,” writes the report’s author, Dr. Daniel Staetsky, senior research fellow at the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) which published the research.
Whilst there have been recent efforts to answer this question as it relates to the members of one specific anti-Israel group, CST and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) have produced a major study on antisemitism in Great Britain, including “the first robust empirical documentation” on the link between antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes in the country as a whole.Campus Censorship: Orwell Ignored
The report demonstrates a dramatic disparity between the percentage of the general population who hold antisemitic views and the percentage of those with strong anti-Israel views who hold antisemitic views.
In short, we find that, in the population as a whole, there is a three in ten chance that an individual selected at random would hold some level of antisemitic sentiment. Among those who hold no antipathy towards Israel, that would drop to just over one in ten. However, among those holding the strongest level of anti-Israel views…that possibility climbs to over seven in ten.
To cite one example of this stark disparity, whilst only 8% of the general population in the UK agree with the statement “Jews have too much power in Britain”, the number jumps to 41% among those with strong anti-Israel attitudes. Additionally, whilst 4% of the general population believe the Holocaust has been “exaggerated”, the number rises to 23% among those who hold strongly anti-Israel views.
This graph illustrates the rest of the results.
When you hear the quite horrific stories of censorship and dangerous restrictions on expression at universities in the US, the UK and Europe, your first reaction might be to laugh at how infantile the nature of political discourse in the student world has become.Daphne Anson: "A Cultural Answer to Calls for a Boycott"
Cardiff Metropolitan University banned the use of the word "man" and related phrases, to encourage the adoption of "gender neutral" language. It is the equivalent of the "newspeak" about which Orwell warned: "Ambiguous euphemistic language used chiefly in political propaganda".
Currently, longstanding expressions carrying no prejudice are now used as the trappings of often fictitious "oppressions."
City University in London, renowned for its journalism school, is apparently banning newspapers that do not conform to the current student body's various political biases. If the Sun, Daily Mail and Express are such bad publications, why not allow students to read them and make up their own minds? Perhaps students do not trust their peers to make up their own minds? What if they make up their minds the "wrong" way? To suggest that the brightest and best at our universities cannot contend with a dissenting argument should probably be at least slightly concerning.
There seems to be a growing consensus among student populations that certain views should not be challenged, heard or -- if one does not hear them -- even known.
A culture has also emerged at universities of promoting "safe spaces". These ostensibly aim to be free of prejudices such as racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and other bile. But all too often, we have seen them filled with exactly these prejudices – anti-whiteness, anti-maleness and of course anti-Semitism, as even some of Britain's leading universities are "becoming no-go zones for Jews".
At the Roundhouse Theatre in the north-west London district of Camden from 8-11 September, Tel Aviv came to Britain in th shape of the TLV in LDN Festival. The aim, in the words of its director, Marc Worth, talking to the Jewish Chronicle, was to15,000 People Attend Largest-Ever Israeli Cultural Festival in Europe
"showcase and celebrate Tel Aviv’s cultural diversity – offering visitors a sense of the city’s tastes, smells, sounds, sights and cultural scene ..."
And in those of Israeli minister for public security, information and strategic affairs Gilad Erdan, talking to the Jerusalem Post,
“The festival is of great importance in its very existence in Britain as we mark one century of the Balfour Declaration. This festival is a cultural answer to the calls for a boycott against Israel.”
He and Britain's Secretary of State for International Trade Dr Liam Fox attended along with Tel Aviv's mayor Ron Huldai.
Israel-haters had failed to get the event cancelled, and many, including activists from the loathsome and pathetic International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network turned up to to do their best to spoil the atmosphere.
The largest-ever Israeli cultural event in Europe, TLV in LDN, attracted some 15,000 people to the five-day event to celebrate Israeli culture and diversity in London.BDS is failing: a continuing series documenting Israeli success.
The Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy, the British Jewish community and the British Embassy in Israel hosted the event Sept. 7 – 11.
Some of Israel’s top female singers, including Ethiopian-Israeli Ester Rada, performed for hundreds of locals during Sunday’s celebration, under the theme “Woman in Power,” at the historic Roundhouse Music Hall in London.
“We came from Tel Aviv to bring you love,” said Rada, as she opened the evening before a soul music performance from Maximilian Blumin.
Israeli-Arab singer Mira Awad also performed and sang in English, Hebrew and Arabic, with Yemenite-Israeli trio A-WA concluding the three-hour show with their performance.
The festival saw some 15,000 Londoners revel in Israeli culture, fashion and cuisine. Locals enjoyed culinary workshops provided by Israeli master chefs, as well as performances from an eclectic group of 120 Israeli vocalists, and an LGBT party over the weekend.
The festival encountered some opposition, and saw some anti-Israel BDS protestors demonstrate at the event. An unusual scene unfolded when Israeli Chef Shaul Ben Aderet handed out sweets to the protestors, which had originally been prepared for festival attendees.
Economic BDS FailsMichael Lumish: The Week on Nothing Left
Foreign investment in Israel up 7%
Investments in Israel by foreign companies totaled $12.6 billion in 2016, 7% more than in 2015, according to the Ministry of Economy and Industry Industrial Cooperation and Foreign Investments Authority. The figures show that 320 multinational companies operate in Israel, and the pace at which such companies are starting to do business in Israel has tripled from 10 a decade ago to 30 in 2016.
Frutarom buys Israeli flavor extracts co Turpaz
Israeli flavors and natural specialty fine ingredients company Frutarom Industries Ltd. (TASE: FRUT; LSE:FRUT) has acquired a 51% stake of Israeli company Turpaz Perfume and Flavor Extracts Ltd. at an overall cash-free debt-free company value of NIS 53.7 million ($15.1 million). This is Frutarom’s seventh acquisition this year.
BDS Fails: Israeli Exports Up 6% in First Half of 2017
Despite high-profile and widely publicized campaigns to boycott Israel, the Jewish State continues to thrive.
Israeli exports rose 6 percent—to $50 billion—during the first half of 2017, according to the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute.
The jump in exports was driven by rapid growth in high-tech services and incoming tourism, the institute said. Exports of services totaled $21 billion in the first half of this year, boosted by the rising trend in exports of computer and software services, which grew 12 percent to $6.8 billion. Exports of tourist services were up 16 percent, to $3.2 billion, in the same period.
Exports in industrial sections—including drugs, chemicals, refined oil products and electronic components—grew 5 percent.
This week Michael Burd and Alan Freedman speak to David Adler, the convenor of the Australian Jewish Association, after the successful event held in Melbourne last Sunday, and then hear from Smadar Pery who is involved in Israel advocacy in Germany.In New Yorker, Diana Buttu Fabricates About 'Fauda'
We then hear from German author and commentator Matthias Kuntzel about his work, and then Hadar Sela who runs BBC Watch which monitors that organisation for bias against Israel.
And Isi Leibler joins the fellahs as usual from Jerusalem.
4 min Editorial: Australian Jewish Association continued
12 min Dr David Adler, Australian Jewish Association
28 min Smadar Pery, Israel advocate in Germany
51 min Matthias Kuntzel, Gernman author and commentator
1 hr 11 Hadar Sela, BBC Watch
1 hr 31 Isi Leibler, Jerusalem
Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former legal advisor for the Palestine Liberation Organization who has infamously and repeatedly insisted that Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza "do not carry explosive heads," and has repeatedly and falsely maintained that no Israelis died in suicide bombings from 1997 to 2000 inside Israel (in fact, 24 Israeli civilians were killed in six bombings during that time period), has now turned her fact-defying denials to fiction: the popular television series "Fauda."Bias by the Numbers – June-July 2017
In a New Yorker review of "Fauda," editor David Remnick writes ("How Do You Make a TV Show Set in the West Bank," Sept. 4):
Diana Buttu, a lawyer who has worked as a legal adviser to the P.L.O., watched the series recently and told me that she found the experience disturbing. She did not share Shamni’s ambivalence, and when we spoke she made a compelling critique of “Fauda.” “In ‘Fauda,’ we do not see the occupation,” she said. “It is invisible, just as it is in the minds of Israelis. In fact, we never even hear the word. We don’t see a single checkpoint, settlement, settlers, or home demolitions. We don’t see any homes being taken over, or land being expropriated or anything of the sort. We see a nice brick wall, not the ugly eight-metre-high one, as the only sign that we are in the West Bank.
While Buttu's critique may be "compelling," it's also false. Contrary to Buttu's claim, the word "occupation" is heard in "Fauda" and checkpoints do appear. For instance, in the very first episode, during the key wedding scene in which undercover Israeli forces carry out a failed attempt to kill arch-terrorist Taufiq Hamed and end up killing the groom, the groom's uncle gives a speech, stating before these dramatic events (23:06): "Despite all that the occupation has done to us, we still bear children. We're successful, we raise families, have children and prosper."
Bias By The Numbers’ previous edition revealed notable discrepancies between the British and American media markets. In raw terms, British outlets – led by The Independent – surveyed by HonestReporting in April and May published far more articles depicting Israel in a negative light than their American counterparts.
In reexamining these trends with new data collected over June and July, HonestReporting found that this pattern not only remained, but even worse, the total number of headlines critical of Israel in both American and British publications increased at similar rates. (Bias By The Numbers uses the terms “anti-Israel” and “negative” interchangeably for clarity.)
In every single publication examined, there was an increase in negative headlines towards Israel.
This was because of July’s Temple Mount-related unrest in Jerusalem which significantly boosted the amount of reporting from Israel in all the publications HonestReporting examined.
A reasonable increase in negative articles on Israel would naturally be expected to occur in a period like this. However, the negative reporting in two out of three publications (The Independent and Telegraph) surveyed in the British media market swelled to amounts out of proportion to previous figures. Conversely, negative reporting in The Guardian did increase only to a threshold within the April-May period’s distribution of anti-Israel articles in comparison to all Israel-related pieces published.
It bears mentioning why headlines matter: For an increasing number of people, what they know about the Mideast and many other topics comes from skimming headlines on their social media feeds. And for the few articles that do get clicked on, studies show that headlines impact the way people read and remember stories.
This Irish Times journalist didn’t respond very well to our criticism
The Irish Times published a report yesterday by Ronan McGreevy focusing on Steven Salaita, the professor who sued the University of Illinois for denying him a promotion after a number of hateful tweets came to light. The article (‘Criticising Israel brings ‘lifetime punishment’, says US academic’, Sept. 11th) noted some of the controversial tweets in question by the anti-Zionist academic, including “If you’re defending #Israel right now, you’re an awful human being” and “if Netanyahu appeared on TV with a necklace made from the teeth of Palestinian children, would anybody be surprised?”.Neo-Nazis plan to march near Swedish synagogue on Yom Kippur
However, the report omitted Salaita’s most damning tweets. These include a couple which defended Hamas, and one charging Israel with “incinerating children”. In one tweet, not mentioned by the Irish Times, Salaita argued that Zionist Jews, by supporting Israel, are partly responsible for the antisemitic remarks directed towards them. Tweets omitted by the Irish Times also include the accusation of genocide against Israel, and at least two evoking the Israel-Nazi analogy.
Another one of the worst tweets by Salaita during the war, that the Irish Times didn’t report, characterises antisemitism as something “honorable”:
Jews in the Swedish city of Gothenburg were bracing for a neo-Nazi march scheduled to pass near the city’s main synagogue on Yom Kippur.Croatia government under fire for failing to tackle pro-Nazis
Community leaders said they will appeal a police decision last week that would allow the Nordic Resistance Movement to march during the Gothenburg Book Fair, when some 100,000 people will gather in the city for the largest literary festival in Scandinavia.
The police had denied the far-right group’s initial request to march on the main streets of Gothenburg, which is the second largest city in Sweden and located on the country’s west coast. The alternate route offered by police would take the marchers only about 200 yards from the Gothenburg Synagogue on Judaism’s holiest day, which this year falls on Sept. 30.
Members of the Jewish community, which typically is under tight security, are worried about harassment and physical threats from the marchers, said Allan Stutzinsky, chairman of the Gothenburg Jewish community. People affiliated with the Nordic Resistance Movement were responsible for antisemitic threats that led to the shuttering in April of the Jewish community center in Umea, a city in northeastern Sweden, according to Stutzinsky. A community center is part of the synagogue complex in Gothenburg.
”The threat against us is always large, and it becomes even larger when they are marching,” Stutzinsky told JTA, adding that left-wing counter protesters may also be a threat to Jews.
With his Hitler-style toothbrush moustache, ex-fighter Marko Skejo leaves no doubt about his politics: the now-disbanded paramilitary unit he fought for displays open nostalgia for a pro-Nazi past that Croatia is struggling to tackle.Israeli firm chosen to build protoype of US border wall with Mexico
The unit, the Croatian Defense Forces (HOS), last week said it would continue to display a memorial plaque for its comrades killed in Croatia’s 1990s independence war which bears the pro-Nazi slogan “Za dom spremni” (“For the Homeland, ready”).
It was the official motto of the fighting group — which disbanded in the early stages of the war — and appears on their coat of arms.
The phrase was used by the country’s World War II Ustasha regime, which persecuted and killed hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs, Roma and anti-fascist Croats.
Ex-paramilitaries had put up the plaque last November by the site of the former Jasenovac camp, known as “Croatia’s Auschwitz,” sparking outrage from the country’s ethnic minorities, rights groups and centre-left opposition.
Elta North America, an Israeli-owned defense manufacturer with US headquarters in Maryland, was one of four companies chosen to build a prototype for the border wall between the United States and Mexico.‘Greenhouse Academy,’ Another Adaptation of a Hit Israeli TV Show, Debuts on Netflix
The company is a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries. Some 200 companies vied for the tenders, which will provide a $300,000 to $500,000 grant to develop a model. The tender was announced late last week.
In total, eight companies are building prototypes for the nearly 2,000-mile-long wall. Four will be concrete and four will have see-through or “smart” walls. Elta was chosen to work on the see-through wall project.
The final project could cost up to $25 billion.
Elta manufactures radar systems and components for branches of the American military. It also provides radar components for the Israeli military, which purchases them using US military aid and must be spent in the United States. In its Israeli headquarters, Elta manufactures radar systems for Arrow missiles, the Iron Dome anti-missile system, espionage and fighter jets, according to Ynet.
US President Donald Trump has praised Israel for its southern border wall meant to stop African migrants from illegally entering the country.
In 2004, Giora Chamizer was an Israeli TV writer living in New York and doing not much at all. He’d lounge on the couch, he recalled in an interview last year, channel surf, catch three or four movies a week, and wait for inspiration to strike. It did, as it so rarely does these days, in an article in The New Yorker.Anne Frank's diary receives animated adaptation
It was a piece about Hogan Sheffer, the head writer for As the World Turns at the time. The notion of making up wild and preposterous stories every single day strikes most people, Sheffer included, as torture, but Chamizer saw only promise. He returned to Israel, and pitched a brand new hybrid format: A daily action-adventure soap opera, for and starring tweens.
The result, Ha’Shminia, was so successful that Chamizer was soon called on to produce another and another. Before too long, he hit on the idea for Ha’Hamama, or the Greenhouse, which was eventually purchased by Netflix, reshot with Israeli and American actors, renamed Greenhouse Academy, and debuted last weekend.
Being what it is, the show’s plot is difficult to describe. Like Harry Potter crossed with Spy Kids with a dash of Fauda, it follows the adventure of a school for special kids, divided into two houses—one for the cool and one for the smart. Together, they handle everything from rogue astronauts to doomsday weapons to deadly viruses spread by dashing and mysterious villains, all while falling in love and having the sort of delightfully meaningless fights we all have in the throes of puberty.
"The Diary of Anne Frank," which has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide since first being published 70 years ago, is receiving a new, surprising adaptation as a graphic novel and animated feature film aimed at children.Israel, India to Boost Start Up Cooperation
The project, initiated by the Anne Frank Fund in Switzerland, is the brainchild of Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman and art director and illustrator David Polonsky, who also collaborated on the critically acclaimed animated film "Waltz with Bashir" and the science fiction film "The Congress."
Using animation and illustration, the book and film aim to bring to life the words of the Jewish girl who documented her experiences hiding from the Nazis before being sent to her death in a concentration camp.
Folman's book version of Anne Frank's story will be released on Sept. 18 and will be available in 50 countries. It will hit shelves in Israel in October.
"The Anne Frank Fund liked what David [Polonsky] and I did on 'Waltz with Bashir' and proposed we adapt her diary into a graphic novel and full-length animated film," Folman told Israel Hayom.
"They understood that the way to attract new audiences to the book is to speak to them in a visual language they know and understand," he said.
When Prime Minister Modi visited the Jewish State in July, Nasscom and Accenture issued a joint study assessing the potential of bilateral cooperation in start up sector. The report claimed that “a cumulative cross-border investment of USD 25 billion into Indian and Israeli start-ups by 2025 can create 25 world-class products across different sectors, unleashing a revenue potential of up to USD 25 billion from these products by 2025.”Christian Zionists Raise Funds to Rebuild Jewish Honey Farm Destroyed by Palestinians
During the Indian leader’s visit, both countries signed a series of bilateral agreements aimed at strengthening ties in various technological fields. A joint innovation fund was also set up with the seed money of $40 million, seeking to promote research in the field of technology and industry.
“We are of one view that together our scientists and researchers would develop, build and implement mutually beneficial solutions,” Prime Minister Modi said during his historic visit. India’s IT sector hopes to build on that promise.
With Rosh Hashanah approaching, Christian supporters of Israel have raised thousands of dollars to rebuild a West Bank-based honey farm that was destroyed by Palestinian vandals.#ConanIsrael Sneak Peek: Tel Aviv - CONAN on TBS
Several hundred Christian Zionists from around the world contributed over $15,000 towards the reconstruction of the Dvash Kedumim honey factory after Palestinian thieves apparently severely damaged the farm and stole the business’s entire stock of award-winning honey just weeks before the Jewish new year.
During Rosh Hashanah, Jews customarily dip apples in honey to symbolically welcome a sweet new year.
“The efforts by these Christians send a powerful message: The Bible, and its message about a land flowing with milk and honey, is stronger than terrorism and can beat BDS,” said Rabbi Tuly Weisz, founder of Israel365, an Israeli non-profit that promotes the Biblical significance and physical beauty of Israel.
The funds, raised through an email campaign coordinated by Israel365, will replace the farm’s beehives, bolster security equipment and help support the Farbstein family who founded and run the honey business in Israel’s biblical heartland.
“Honey is all about God’s bounty,” said Yael Farbstein. “It isn’t anything I can control. Sometimes it is sweet and plentiful, and sometimes it is less so. Despite the losses, we are doing our part by increasing our efforts. We need to show them that we are here to stay.”
