Monday, October 09, 2017
Were Egypt’s Jews expelled? Bonan rebuts Bisawe
Israel Bonan 's plans to leave Egypt were disrupted when he became one of 400 Jews jailed for up to three years after the 1967 war. Haaretz has published his long rebuttal to an earlier piece by Eyal Sagui Bisawe which argued that Egyptian Jews were not singled out for expulsion: their exit was not as dramatic nor as systematic as they claim, but a result of decolonisation targeting all minorities. (Bisawe’s claim that Jews from Arab countries exaggerated their persecution to gain legitimacy with Ashkenazi Jews is commonly heard on the left.) Bonan argues that Jews were targeted over and above other minorities and for their religion, not nationality (with thanks: Pablo, Eliyahu, Imre and Lily):
"We can imagine rows of hooded soldiers gathering Egyptian Jews in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and giving them two options: convert to Islam or be expelled. Or even not giving them the choice but expelling them all. But such an event simply never occurred."
Putting aside the vulgar and unworthy lack of empathy, the ridicule and venom, what is the definition of the word expulsion? A common definition would be: “The process of forcing someone to leave a place, especially a country.”
A process usually entails more than one step to accomplish a purpose.
So, what was the process used to expel the Jews and other minorities from Egypt? These steps spanned many years, promoted by successive governments all marching to the same tune: "Egypt for the Egyptians".
The process follows the same template of Nazi Germany, and of all forms of fascism. Loss of citizenship rights and protection, loss of jobs in the private and public sectors, no prospect for future employment, dispossession of assets, death, and expatriation/expulsion.
.@Amnesty never questions minorities claiming persecution or human rights abuses, yet oddly 'liked' this tweet. Why? https://t.co/TMNPmF2TBy pic.twitter.com/PcV00mcRme
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) October 9, 2017
Disproving 'Temple Mount denial' one bucket at a time
When Wakf bulldozers illegally ascended the Temple Mount in 1999 to surreptitiously remove thousands of tons of ancient soil to make way for a subterranean mosque, two archeologists found hope in recovering some of the Jewish heritage that crime destroyed.
As countless invaluable artifacts dating from the First Temple period at Judaism’s holiest site were dumped in a garbage heap in the capital’s Kidron Valley, Dr. Gabriel Barkay and Zachi Dvira saw an opportunity.
Five years later, under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University, the two archeologists procured a government license to have the ancient debris transferred to Emek Tzurim National Park on the western slope of Mount Scopus, where they established the headquarters of the Temple Mount Sifting Project.
Today some 70% of the 400 truckloads of earth has been scrutinized by a staff of 15 employees and thousands of volunteers from around the globe, one bucket at a time.
Since then, more than 500,000 artifacts – from a 3,000-year-old seal from the time of King David to coins, stone vessels, jewelry and flooring tile fragments from the Second Temple period – have been painstakingly documented for future generations.
Nevertheless, to the outrage and utter befuddlement of millions, last October UNESCO approved a resolution denying Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
Terrorism Charges Filed With Spanish Court Over Palestinian Hijacker
The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit legal-focused think tank, recently submitted a criminal complaint to the National Court of Spain, accusing convicted hijacker Leila Khaled, a member of the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), of “public exaltation” of terrorism and financing terrorism.Total vindication for CAA as police and CPS start to fully prosecute antisemitism cases they had turned down until CAA took legal action
The complaint was submitted in collaboration with the Jewish community of Ibiza, Spain. It details how Khaled used her position in the PFLP to “trivialize the Holocaust, compare Israel to Nazi Germany and advocate for indiscriminate violence against civilians,” the group said in a statement. Additionally, The Lawfare Project has applied for a European warrant for the arrest of Khaled and for her inclusion in the European Union (EU) and Interpol criminal databases.
Khaled, 73, participated in two hijackings; one in 1969 of a TWA flight and the other in 1970 of an El Al plane.
Recently, she was permitted to address the European Parliament at an event called “The role of women in the Palestinian resistance.” The Lawfare Project asserts that Khaled used that platform to “praise extremist violence and demonize Jews.”
“Seeing an infamous terrorist leader welcomed at universities, municipal halls, and even the European Parliament, all while praising violence against civilians, is both despicable and unacceptable,” said Ignacio Wenley Palacios, The Lawfare Project attorney who filed the charges. “Public exaltation and defense of terrorist acts is a serious crime in our country, and we are determined to advance criminal charges on behalf of the victims who are unable to defend themselves.”
Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project, said, “It is high time for the Spanish legal system to address Khaled’s adulation of extremist violence.”
Until we succeeded, Campaign Against Antisemitism had always been told that it was completely impossible to force the state to take action against antisemites. The Jewish community had tried coaxing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) into action over the course of decades to no avail. When Campaign Against Antisemitism was formed, we too tried to amicably convince the CPS to do more, even arranging a summit with the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, and the current Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders.Antisemitic conspiracy theorist Tapash Abu Shaim ran stall at Labour Party Conference and given tour of Parliament by Jeremy Corbyn
It soon became clear to us that pleading with the CPS would not work, but when we took legal action we were told by others in the Jewish community that confronting the CPS could only be damaging and would not result in progress.
Our approach has now been totally vindicated.
In July 2015, neo-Nazis sought to march through Golders Green. We stopped their march, and instead they gathered in a kettling pen in Westminster. One of them, Jeremy Bedford-Turner, said that: “…all politicians are nothing but a bunch of puppets dancing to a Jewish tune, and the ruling regimes in the West for the last one hundred years have danced to the same tune.” Evoking medieval libels which claimed that Jews drank the blood of non-Jewish children, Bedford-Turner told his followers, of whom one third were from the violent extreme-right National Rebirth of Poland group, that the French Revolution and both World Wars were massacres perpetrated by Jews. He concluded that England was “merry” during the period of the expulsion of Jews from England and demanded: “Let’s free England from Jewish control.” The speech was filmed and posted on YouTube, where it remains.
When the CPS refused to prosecute him, we launched judicial review proceedings to quash the CPS’s decision not to prosecute, and after 13 months, we won a comprehensive victory. There was a risk however that the CPS could take us back to square one by refusing to prosecute for a different reason, and we would have had to start our judicial review again.
We have now learned that Jeremy Bedford-Turner has been charged with incitement to racial hatred for his speech.
The leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, reportedly gave a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament to Labour Party member Tapash Abu Shaim, who has a history of allegedly promoting antisemitic conspiracies. Representatives from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) were also reportedly on the tour, which took place on 17th May 2012.Sukka destroyed by unknown vandals at Kansas State University
In a tweet of thanks, Mr Abu Shaim wrote: “You are best tourist guide Mr @JeremyCorbyn . Your knowledge about your history so deep and clear.” Mr Corbyn responded in a tweet the next day, writing: “@TapashAbuShaim @PSCupdates It was a pleasure showing PSC supporters round the vagaries of Parliament & British history last night; thanks!” Both tweets are still on Twitter.
In February, we released a report which exposed antisemitism inside the PSC.
The Labour Party was apparently informed about Mr Abu Shaim’s social media activity in August but it appears that no action was taken. Concerns were reportedly raised last year over his attendance at the Labour Conference in 2016. Guido Fawkes also revealed that Mr Abu Shaim manned a Palestine Solidarity Campaign stall at the recent Labour Party conference. The exhibition stall and desk was apparently inside the conference centre secure zone. According to Guido Fawkes, Labour has now launched an investigation into Mr Abu Shaim’s behaviour.
Mr Abu Shaim’s promotion of antisemitic conspiracies on social media has been well documented. According to political website, Guido Fawkes, just four months before Mr Corbyn gave Mr Abu Shaim the guided tour of Parliament, Mr Abu Shaim reportedly posted on Facebook: “9/11 Truth could be the answer to the Israel/Palestine conflict”, along with a link to an article by Veterans Today, a far-right US website which publishes antisemitic conspiracy myths.
A sukka erected on the campus of Kansas State University was destroyed by vandals.IsraellyCool: Spanish Footballer Marco Asensio Angers The Israel Haters
The sukka purchased by the campus Hillel and erected near the main dining hall on campus was carried away from its place on Friday night and broken apart. The pieces were left around the car of organizer Glen Buickerood, a graduate student who works on diversity initiatives for the campus Housing and Dining department, The Manhattan, Kansas Mercury newspaper reported on Sunday.
Gregory Newmark, co-adviser for Hillel, and an assistant professor at K-State, said the fact that the sukka, which was broken into unrepairable pieces, has been staked down and that an informational poster about the Jewish holiday of Sukkot had been hung on the sukkah, made him believe the vandalism was an antisemitic act.
“This was meant to be a place where everyone was welcome, and someone just ripped it down,” Newmark told the newspaper.
In April, an antisemitic poster was hung on the Kansas State University campus on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The Spanish football team is currently in Israel for a World Cup Qualifier match against the Israeli team tomorrow night.Omaha schools nix Palestinian talk amid concern Jewish students bullied
About an hour ago as of the time of this post, Spanish footballer Marco Asensio tweeted this lovely photo of himself looking over the Western Wall and Temple Mount. Note the flag emoji he used.
Visita cultural. 🇮🇱🔝 pic.twitter.com/VqpxZek4YT
— Marco Asensio (@marcoasensio10) October 8, 2017
The tweet has been already been retweeted over a thousand times and likes almost 6000 times. And there have been almost 5000 responses, almost all of which are from the haters who are truly not happy campers.
Here’s hoping Marco leaves the tweet as it is, without deleting it or apologizing in any way. Let the bullies seethe!
Officials in a Nebraska school district have canceled scheduled talks at two high schools by a Palestinian Christian speaker due to concerns that Jewish students at one of the schools were being harassed ahead of her visit.Lawmakers in Ohio Work to Pass Anti-Boycott Legislation in Support of Israel
Nora Carmi is a Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activist from Jerusalem who’s holding talks around the US this year, including a stop last week at Creighton University in Omaha.
The BDS movement encourages boycotting Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians. Israel charges that the movement is motivated by anti-Semitism.
Carmi was scheduled this week to visit Millard North High School and Millard South High School in Omaha, where curriculum includes learning about the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
Millard North’s principal received a phone call from a parent worried that Carmi would give only one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Rebecca Kleeman, spokeswoman for Millard Public Schools. Kleeman said the district was prepared to proceed with the talks anyway.
Lawmakers in Ohio are working to pass legislation in support of Israel and denouncing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, especially on campuses, Shiri Moshe reported in The Algemeiner on Wednesday.NJ Gubernatorial Candidate Distances Himself from Boycott-Supporting Running Mate
Rep. Andrew Thompson (R-Marietta) spoke in support of the House Concurrent Resolution 10 (HCR10) at the Ohio Statehouse on Thursday, a bill which is also sponsored by Rep. Dave Greenspan (R-Westlake) and supported by over two dozen other lawmakers.
“Antisemitism is not just in existence, but it’s a growing threat on college campuses across the state of Ohio,” Thompson said. “We shouldn’t kid ourselves,” he continued, “The BDS movement is about wiping Israel off the map. And if we don’t stand strongly and firmly against that, if we do not insist that our campuses protect the rights of Jewish students and allies of Israel, we could potentially face much darker outcomes.”
The resolution condemns the anti-Semitic BDS movement, which seeks to delegitimize and demonize Israel worldwide. The bill also denounces efforts to silence Israeli academics and students.
It further calls on Ohio universities to “take an active stand against all anti-Semitic actions and intimidation taken against Jewish students on their campuses,” and to rigorously enforce the right to free speech on campuses.
New Jersey’s Democratic candidate for governor, Phil Murphy, said on Friday that he disagrees with his running mate, Sheila Oliver, over her support for the boycotts campaign against Israel, an anti-Semitic fringe movement that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state.The Zionists are Coming! Panic at San Francisco State U.
The Associated Press reported that, at an unrelated event in Lawrenceville last week, Murphy said that he would have supported the legislation that incumbent Republican Gov. Christ Christie signed into law last year.
In June 2016, Sheila Oliver was one of just three legislators to vote against the bipartisan landmark anti-BDS law which prohibits the state’s public worker pension fund from investing in companies that engage in the boycott of Israel.
“It is important to the economic well-being of New Jersey that persons or entities conducting commercial trade and doing business in the State do not engage in boycotts of a legitimate and viable partner with whom New Jersey can enjoy open trade contracting,” the legislation read.
The anti-BDS law is part of a broader effort to oppose the boycotts movement. Similar measures have passed in 22 states and legislators who oppose them have been called out in the past.
In the fevered imagination of the academic left, these are dark days at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Speakers at a two-day conference, "Rights and Wrongs: A Constitution and Citizenship Day Conference at San Francisco State University," described a campus where a "corporatist" administration is at war with its faculty; Arab-American professors are afraid to walk alone on campus; ethnic student organizations are consigned to the dank student center basement; "Zionists" lie in wait to pounce on innocent, beleaguered proponents of "Palestine"; and "white supremacy" rules. All at one of the most radical universities in the nation.Simon Wiesenthal Center calls on TDSB to pull Islamic guide
Leading these lamentations was the director of SFSU's Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED), Rabab Abdulhadi, whose anti-Israel activism is coming back to haunt her. In addition to being named in a Lawfare Project (L.P.) lawsuit against SFSU alleging "anti-Semitism and overt discrimination against Jewish students," she is at the heart of a Middle East Forum and Campus Watch campaign to end the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) she brokered between SFSU and An-Najah University, a hotbed of anti-Semitism and radicalism in the West Bank.
The conference was held on the top floor of the bustling Cesar Chávez Student Center – adorned with murals of Malcolm X and Edward Said – in spacious, light-filled Jack Adams Hall. A bulletin board near the entrance displayed a flyer calling for the removal of San Francisco's Pioneer Monument, which it dubbed a "monument to white supremacy!" Conference programs featured a graphic of President Donald Trump's silhouette balanced with a white fist on a scale of justice.
The Toronto District School Board’s controversial Islamic Heritage Month guidebook is facing criticism from yet another prominent advocacy organization, this time the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies (FSWC).Aussie lawmaker attacks national broadcaster over perceived anti-Israel bias
While the organization is urging the TDSB pull the whole guide pending a full review of all its contents, they’ve focused their complaint on one section in the guide that promotes the Nation of Islam.
“The Nation of Islam is considered to be a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Nation of Islam officials have a documented history of antisemitic rhetoric including Holocaust denial, exaggerating the role of Jews in the slave trade and hateful conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the economy,” writes the FSWC, led by CEO Avi Benlolo, in a press release.
“We are seeing a movement across Canada to honestly look back at history and to call out racism where ever it existed,” the release continues. “We believe that all organizations seeking to reach our youth within our schools should be held to the same standard of honest dialogue.”
A Jewish member of the Australian government advertised with taxpayer money perceived examples of anti-Israel bias in the media.Brazilian newspaper sorry for crossword entry on ‘Israeli occupation’
Michael Danby paid The Australian Jewish News to publish two half-page ads pointing out treatment differences on two stories reported by the Jerusalem correspondent of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Sophie McNeill.
Danby’s gripe, which was supported in print by one senior secular journalist, was the coverage of the murders of three members of the Solomon family recently by a terrorist as they sat down for their Shabbat dinner. McNeill’s story failed to name the Jewish victims which Danby claims to have dehumanized them.
Another report by McNeill on the eviction of a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem was pictorially enhanced with family members mentioned.
An influential daily newspaper in Brazil apologized for publishing a crossword puzzle that identified “Palestine” as a “territory that suffers Israeli occupation and bombings.”Poland urged to fire publisher of works by Holocaust denier
Estado de S. Paulo’s readers received the crossword puzzle in the Oct. 1 edition.
“We apologize for the wrong way the question about Israel and Palestine was addressed,” the newspaper’s editor wrote in a retraction and apology published Sunday.
“Accurate research for correct information is within the main guidelines of our editorial content,” the statement said. “In this case, there was a failure to comply with such precepts. We are committed to taking the necessary measures to prevent this fact to happen again.”
The reaction against the crossword puzzle was led by officials of the Brazilian Israelite Confederation and the Jewish federations of Sao Paulo and Rio. The apology was published on the confederation’s web site.
A Jewish rights group is urging a Polish state historical institute to fire an official who has published several books by notorious British Holocaust denier David Irving.Croatia Is Brazenly Attempting to Rewrite its Holocaust Crimes Out of History
But the Polish historical body, the Institute of National Remembrance, says the official, Arkadiusz Wingert, is not a Holocaust denier himself so there is no reason to dismiss him.
Wingert was appointed earlier this year as deputy director of the publishing office of the institute, whose mission is to investigate crimes carried out against Polish citizens during World War II, when Poland was under German occupation, and during the subsequent communist era.
Wingert previously ran a publishing house that printed Polish translations of several of Irving's works.
Irving is a revisionist historian who has declared that the Auschwitz gas chambers were a hoax. He has been declared guilty of Holocaust denial by courts in Britain and Austria, where he served a 13-month prison sentence.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, headquartered in the United States, said it was a "shameful farce" to give Wingert responsibility for publishing works devoted to the victims of World War II given that he had published the works of Irving and also of a Belgian Nazi collaborator, Leon Degrelle.
It is in this broader context of a disquieting trend to downplay if not totally ignore crimes against humanity committed by domestic Nazi collaborators, both individuals and movements, during the years of the Holocaust, that the Croatian Jewish community’s confrontation with the Croatian authorities takes on special significance. The recasting of the Ustasha as national heroes and role models has ominous connotations in a country and region where ethnic hatred and strife have had catastrophic consequences, not just during WWII but more recently during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.German Jews cut ties with local Turkish group due to antisemitism
The publication in 2001 of Ivo and Slavko Goldstein’s meticulously researched The Holocaust in Croatia makes it impossible for the Croatian authorities to claim ignorance of the Ustasha’s direct responsibility for the genocides of Serbs, Jews, and Roma between 1941 and 1945. Indeed, this book, which was published in English in 2016 by University of Pittsburgh Press in association with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, should be required reading in all Croatian schools and at all Croatian universities.
At a time when far-right politicians and ideologues like the above-mentioned former Croatian minister of culture, Zlatko Hasanbegovićare, becoming increasingly brazen, if not overtly shameless, in their attempts to write the crimes against humanity committed by the Ustasha out of their nation’s history, the Croatian Jewish community deserves both respect and international support. Such support should come not just from international Jewish organizations and other Jewish communities, but from institutions and agencies around the world that are dedicated to the preservation of the memory of the Holocaust and other genocides. These small and overdue steps are necessary to prevent the re-creation of the xenophobic, hate-filled environment that allowed the Holocaust and other genocides to occur in the first place.
The Jewish community in the city of Mannheim broke off talks and exchanges with the Turkish Ditib religious association because its headquarters in Ankara spreads antisemitism, the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper reported.Woman attacks two Jewish girls in Crown Heights
Majid Khoshlessan, the chairman of the Jewish community, said it cut ties with the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (referred to in Germany as Ditib) because of “antisemitic statements” from Ditib’s central office in Ankara.
The small Jewish community (478 members) in the state of Baden-Württemberg agreed to end exchanges with the Ditib in a nearly unanimous resolution vote at its membership meeting. That means not accepting invitations from the Muslim group and not extending invitations to Ditib.
In 2015, The Jerusalem Post reported that the webpage of Ditib’s branch in Melsungen, in Hesse state, contained such quotes as: “The Jews are cruel and malicious,” “The Jews are stingy,” “[The Jews] lie and cheat,” “Jews violate contracts and promises,” and “They [the Jews] falsified the Torah.”
A 26-year-old woman assaulted two teenage girls who were headed to a Hasidic Jewish event in Crown Heights on Thursday.Anti-Semitic graffiti discovered on Minnesota junior high school
According to police sources, the assailant, Shannon Polak, was stopped by a passerby who stepped in and was then also beaten by the woman.
According to New York Daily News, Polak questioned the two girls, aged 14 and 15, on Kingston Ave. about the event to which they were headed, and when they answered, Polak asked them "if they really believed in that."
It was then that Polak began pulling the girls' hair and choking them. A Hasidic man stepped in and took the brunt of the violence before the police were called. The arrest was made within minutes and the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force has taken over the investigation.
Anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered on a junior high school in St. Cloud, Minnesota.Canada's Holocaust memorial plaque to be replaced after not mentioning Jews
A swastika and the word “soon” was painted on the east side of the North Junior High building. It was discovered on Sept. 29, hours before the start of Yom Kippur, and covered up before the students arrived. It was later removed, the St. Cloud Times reported Tuesday.
“On Monday, a message was sent to parents assuring them that North is committed to ensuring all students feel safe and welcome,” Tami DeLand, director of community engagement and communications for St. Cloud Area School District 742, said in an email statement to the newspaper. “As a district, St. Cloud Area Schools is committed to providing a learning environment that is free from discrimination and harassment.”
St. Cloud schools teach about World War II and the Holocaust in seventh grade and again in greater depth in 10th grade, DeLand said.
The plaque marking the opening of Canada’s National Holocaust Monument will be replaced after the original failed to mention that Jews were the majority of the victims.The French medical brain drain: Why are so many doctors leaving for Israel?
Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly told the House of Commons on Thursday that the plaque will be replaced, and also reiterated that the monument commemorates the 6 million Jewish people and 5 million other people killed by the Nazis and their supporters during the Holocaust.
“On the day the monument was unveiled, we noticed that the panel at the entrance conspicuously and curiously did not mention Jews,” Martin Sampson, director of communications for the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said in a statement, according to the Toronto Star. “We raised our concerns with the government. They were very responsive, acknowledged the error and agreed to correct it immediately.”
The monument was unveiled at the end of last month by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It states that the monument commemorates the “millions of men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust and honors the survivors who persevered and were able to make their way to Canada after one of the darkest chapters in history.”
MICHEL ALIMI says he was shopping at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket just a couple of hours before an Islamist struck on January 9, 2015, shooting four Jews dead and holding 16 hostage before being killed by French police. Now, he, his wife and one of his daughters are moving to Israel.Israeli Defense Firm Elbit Wins $570 Million in Contracts in US, Asia-Pacific, Africa
The 62-year-old general practitioner says the attack, coming after other bloody instances of anti-Jewish violence by French Muslims, has sparked a wave of departures to Israel, including about 50 families from his own neighborhood of Saint-Mandé, on the edge of Paris.
But it’s not just the dangers of Paris life that have motivated hundreds of Jewish medical professionals to join thousands of other French Jews in moving to Israel. It’s also a slew of recent rule changes by Israeli authorities that will make the transition easier for people like him and daughter Aurelia, a 33-year-old pediatrician who specializes in pediatric oncology, who are preparing, or considering, aliya, according to Israeli officials in France and Israel.
France is recognized as having among the highest standards of medical care in the world, and there are thousands of Jewish doctors there, including many who have held prominent positions. André Lichwitz was Charles de Gaulle’s personal physician and Prof. Pierre Aboulker performed the French president’s prostate operation.
Dr. José Aboulker, a relative of Pierre, was a World War II hero who infiltrated Nazioccupied France as a secret agent and later headed the emergency medical unit that followed de Gaulle when he was targeted for assassination.
The Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems recently announced a series of freshly signed deals worth more than $570 million.Robots to the rescue as joint US-Israel team gets $900,000 award
Haifa-based Elbit develops defense electronic systems and operates in the fields of aerospace, land and naval systems, computers, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance systems, unmanned aircraft systems, electro-optics, signal intelligence, data links, and communications systems and radios.
On Tuesday, the company said that its US-based subsidiary, Elbit Systems of America, was awarded a $31.5 million contract by the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime, a combat support agency in the US Defense Department, to provide the government with aviator night vision imaging system head-up displays. The work will be performed over a two-year period.
The statement came on the heels of another deal, announced last weekend, in which Elbit signed a $300 million contract to supply command and control systems to a large Asia-Pacific client. Elbit did not name the client.
The BIRD Foundation, a US-Israeli partnership that promotes research and development projects between companies from the two nations, has picked US-based Mantaro Networks Inc. and Beeper Communications Israel to develop unmanned search and rescue technologies that can complement the work of human first responders.Israeli Philanthropist Donates Six-Figure Gift to Fund Hearing Treatment for Syrian Children
The two companies will use the $900,000 award by the foundation to develop robots as first responders, to fill in the “capability gaps” of humans, based on feedback and information from the US Department of Homeland Security and the National Technology Plan for Emergency Response to Catastrophic Incidents. The project will be funded over an 18-month period.
The project is the result of the BIRD Foundation’s “NextGen First Responders program,” which called for proposals established in partnership with the US Department of Homeland Security and Israel’s Public Security Ministry.
“In an age where man-made and natural disasters have become global phenomena, it is important to integrate the various responders and their agencies, to minimize casualties and damage to infrastructure and private property,” said Moshe Levinson, senior vice president of the Tel Aviv-based communications startup Beeper Communications Israel, in a statement.
A six-figure donation from Israeli philanthropist Morris Kahn is going to Ziv Medical Center in Safed (Tzfat) to fund treatment of hearing loss among Syrian children brought from conflict areas to Israel for medical care.IsraellyCool: MUST LISTEN: Aussie Radio Producer’s “Life-Changing” Experience in Israel
The hospital near the border with Syria, recently visited by celebrity Conan O’Brien, has extensive experience treating wounded Syrian civilians.
Exams performed at Ziv have revealed that one out of every three Syrian children from combat zones suffers hearing loss. The grant will cover direct expenses related to clinical treatments, surgery and rehabilitation as well as state-of-the-art hearing devices for an estimated 50 children.
Kahn said he was inspired by 2017 Genesis Prize Laureate Sir Anish Kapoor, a renowned sculptor and human-rights activist, who is donating his $1 million prize to refugee causes. Kahn reached out to the Genesis Prize Foundation, which agreed to facilitate the grant to the hospital.
“We have treated more than 1,000 Syrians of all ages who needed our help over the past four years. It’s really important for me as a physician, as an Israeli, and as a human being. I am extremely grateful to Anish Kapoor and the Genesis Prize Foundation for shedding light on the important work we do. With their help, we can make the world a better place for a lot more Syrian children,” said Dr. Salman Zarka, director of Ziv.
A group of Australian journalists recently returned from this year’s NSW Jewish Board of Deputies’ Journalists Mission to Israel.
One of them was Sydney Live Producer Zac McLean, who was so impressed and moved by what he saw, that he called the trip a “life-changing experience.”
This is a must-listen because it represents the perspective of an intellectually honest person not afraid to talk about what he saw.
This Week in Gal Gadot
While you were shaking the lulav and reclining in your Sukkah, Gal Gadot was doing what Gal Gadot does best, which is schooling the world on how we do it in the 972. It wasn’t that she was trying hard to be a proud Israeli, which would’ve come off as pandering and cloying. Instead, she actually is a proud Israeli, and she shared her uncomplicated delight with her country and her culture in a way that was joyous, infectious, and absolutely wonderful. And so, in case you missed it, here are your top three moments in Gal Gadot:3 Israeli judokas take gold at Tashkent Grand Prix
Gal and the Shokolad Para
What do you bring when you go on The Tonight Show? Most guests come carrying some canned story about that time they goofed in an adorable way, tweaked by their handlers and delivered with forced charm. Gadot brought chocolate. And not just any chocolate: Shokolad Para, which, but for the grace of Bamba, is Israel’s most iconic junk food item. And not just any Shokolad Para: The kind Gadot offered Jimmy Fallon is an Israeli stoner’s delight, stuffed with Pop Rocks. Watch her and Jimmy eat it and then put their mouths by the mic to capture all that delightful popping and rocking, and you can imagine what it was like to go to film school in Tel Aviv in the drug-addled Nineties:
Three Israeli judokas won gold medals in their respective weight classes on Saturday and Sunday at the Tashkent Grand Prix.Erlich and Muslim partner win doubles event
Or Sasson took first place in the men’s over-100 kilogram grouping, after beating Kyrgyzstan’s Iurii Krakovetskii.
Sasson won the bronze medal in the same category during the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
In the men’s under-81 kilogram class, Sagi Muki won gold on Saturday after defeating Nyamsuren Dagvasuren of Mongolia.
The tournament was the first time Muki competed in the under-81 kilogram group, having previously fought in the under-73 kilogram weight class, according to Judo Inside.
On the women’s side, Israel’s Betina Temelkova took gold in the under-52 kilogram group.
Israeli Yoni Erlich claimed his first ATP Tour title in almost two years on Sunday, triumphing in the Chengdu Open doubles event in China with Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi.IsraellyCool: Adam Sandler Getting His Palm Frond On
The Jewish/Muslim duo defeated Marcos Daniell and Marcelo Demoliner 6-3, 7-6 (3) in the final and will share a check of $55,730, as well as 250 rankings points. The 40-yearold Erlich, who doesn’t have a regular partner, entered the tournament ranked No. 105 in doubles, but will return to the top 100 when the new rankings are released on Monday.
Erlich had lost his past three finals on the ATP Tour, with his last title also coming in China, with Britain’s Colin Fleming in the Shenzhen Open in October 2015.
Sunday’s win gave Erlich his 19th career ATP doubles title – 14 of which came with retired fellow Israeli Andy Ram – while improving his overall record in finals to 19-19.
Put on your yarmulke
Here comes Chanukah..
Oops, wrong holiday.
American actor, comedian, screenwriter, film producer, and musician Adam Sandler has been filmed making a blessing with his daughter on the lulav and etrog after bumping into Chabad rabbis near Brentwood Los Angeles.
What I love about this is not just that Sandler actually stopped to do it with his daughter but how serious he looks as he tries to do it. He is not his usual jokey self at all. Dare I say it, it seems he really wants to do it properly – for his sake but also for his daughter’s.
I have always considered Adam Sandler a mensch – whether it be for ripping BDS and Roger Waters, or other supportive comments about Israel. This just reaffirms my view.
IsraellyCool: Binyamin Netanyahu Like You’ve Never Seen Him
The show Objectified is a new show in which interviewees select seven objects that represent chapters in their lives.OBJECTified: Benjamin Netanyahu 10/8/17
Today the interviewee was Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu, and I have to say it makes more fascinating viewing, showing a more personal side to him and who and what has shaped him.
