Thursday, May 03, 2018
Jonathan Rosenhead & the Evil Zionist Conspiracy that Never Was
Jonathan Rosenhead is an academic at the London School of Economics who has long been a member of the anti-Zionist asajews. He’s been a member of whatever group has been in vogue at any given time. Currently the cabal is the so-called Jewish Voice for Labour.
A week ago he gave a talk at an event entitled Corbyn, Antisemitism and Justice for Palestine where he said:
“Just before the outbreak of war the United States had organised a hole… for hundreds of thousands of Jews to escape from Germany and go to…not to the United States certainly, but to a number of Latin American countries that had agreed to have them and in those last few weeks before the war the Zionists stopped that from happening because a Jew who got out of Germany and didn’t go to Palestine was a Jew lost and as a result was hundreds of thousands of Jews who would have escaped did not.
Now that collaboration between, that there was between the Jews, sorry the Zionists and the Nazis ended when there was a British government commission which said we think we should move to create a state for the Jews…think there should be a state for the Jews and at that moment the collaboration stopped because Hitler wanted the Jews out of Germany he didn’t want them to have a state.”
The Jewish Chronicle promptly picked up on this after speaking to academics prominent in the field of Holocaust history:
Paul Bogdanor, a researcher who has challenged the myth of Zionist-Nazi “collaboration”, said: “Prof Rosenhead’s suggestion that ‘the Zionists’ controlled the immigration policies of the Latin American countries before World War Two, or at any other time, relies on myths of Jewish power.
“His fantasy that Zionists were willing and able to block the flight of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Europe relies on stereotypes of Jewish cruelty. Demonising fellow Jews in this way reveals nothing about history but will incite plenty of bigotry.”
Rosenhead wasn’t done yet. He spoke again last night as a guest of Leeds University. When challenged about his comments last week he decided to lie about what he had said and then doubled down on the same statement:
Student: The holocaust being caused by both the Nazis and the Zionists, and I was wondering if you could explain that theory cause I have never heard of it before.
Rosenhead: This is an example of selective and in fact inaccurate quotation. I gave that talk on Thursday and (inaudible). What I said was not that the Holocaust was caused by the Zionists but that there was a move by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the President of the United States, to get some hundreds of thousands of German Jews out of Germany in the period of ’38-’39, there was actually a big conference in Evian which he organised in 1938 pretending to take, to promise to take Jewish refugees. As part of that operation he was trying to persuade a lot of Latin American countries to take Jews. He wasn’t trying to take them to the United States the opposition was too full of Antisemitism in the United States so he tried to get them into these Latin American countries. Now the role that the Jewish leadership under David Ben Gurion at Evian was very tricky. It wasn’t actually pushing for this it was asking for conditions and so on. When Roosevelt seemed to have almost had the possibility of getting them out of Europe he was attacked by the Zionists.
US HOLOCAUST MUSEUM TRIES TO RESCUE FDR: Keeping the Jews out
Part 1 of a 3 part series on the U.S. and the Holocaust, currently the subject of an exhibition at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. in which the facts brought here are obscured.U.S. HOLOCAUST MUSEUM EXCUSES FDR’S SILENCE: Jews are inconvenient
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, D.C, recently opened a controversial new exhibit which claims that President Franklin D. Roosevelt did his best to help Jews during the Holocaust. The Washington Post described it as “a posthumous makeover for FDR at the museum.”
PART 1: KEEPING THE JEWS OUT
“It is a fantastic commentary on the inhumanity of our times,” wrote journalist Dorothy Thompson in 1938, “that for thousands and thousands of people, a piece of paper with a stamp on it is the difference between life and death.”
For over a century, the United States had an open-door immigration policy, welcoming newcomers from around the world in almost unlimited numbers. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, however, a number of prominent American anthropologists and eugenicists began promoting the idea that Anglo-Saxons were biologically superior to other peoples. This racialist view of society reshaped the public’s view of immigration in the years following World War I.
The shift in attitudes took place at the same time that Americans were becoming increasingly anxious about Communism, as a result of the establishment of the Soviet Union. The combination of racism, fear of Communism, and general resentment of foreigners created strong public pressure to restrict immigration.
PART 2: THE INCONVENIENCE OF RESCUING JEWS
When the world-famous German Jewish chemist Fritz Haber approached US Ambassador to Germany William Dodd in July 1933 to ask about “the possibilities in America for emigrants with distinguished records here in science,” Dodd told him (according to Dodd’s diary) “that the law allowed none now, the quota being filled.” In fact, the German quota was 95% unfilled that year.
Ten year-old Herbert Friedman was denied permission to accompany his mother and brother to the United States in 1936 after an examining physician at the Stuttgart consulate claimed he had tuberculosis. Tests all proved negative, and an array of German and American specialists who reviewed his X-rays likewise concluded that he did not have the disease. Yet the consulate would not budge. The family eventually managed to enlist the help of Albert Einstein, who, in a letter to the surgeon general about the case, reported:
“I have spoken to a reliable young man who recently emigrated from Germany; when I told him about the Stuttgart Consulate’s refusal to issue the visa for the child, without giving the young man the reason for the refusal [that is, Einstein did not tell him about the claim of tuberculosis—RM], he immediately said, ‘That is an old story. Tuberculosis!’ This shows clearly that this case is not an isolated case but that it is becoming a dangerous practice.
IsraellyCool: Danny Yatom, Mossad, Israel’s Security, and BDS
On Tuesday, May 1, 2018, I attended a talk given by former Mossad Chief, Danny Yatom, at Washington Hebrew Congregation, a reform synagogue in Washington, DC. I was looking forward to hearing about Israel’s security the day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s presentation revealing thousands of archives smuggled out of Iran demonstrating their nuclear program.Isi Leibler: The disintegration of American Jewry
The talk was being given in the sanctuary of the synagogue. The speakers spoke from positions on the bima (stage), in front of the ark, and the audience was seated where congregants normally sat, with prayer books in receptacles attached to the chairs in front of us.
Susie Gelman, the Chair of the Israeli Policy Forum, the organization that brought Danny Yatom to speak, began the evening by sharing who they are and why they were formed. She thanked the sponsors of the event and introduced Danny Yatom.
Danny Yatom took his place at the podium and began to speak. Almost immediately upon speaking, a man from the audience stood up, unfurled a banner that read, “Free Palestine,” and started screaming at him, calling him “baby killer,” “war criminal,” “murderer,” the usual accusations launched at anyone who is Israeli (or Jewish) by the anti-Israel crowd. The audience was shocked with mouths ajar. Some of us yelled at him to, “get out.” There was not legitimate security in the room, so some of the men who were there as part of the leadership were able to convince him to leave, with only a slight amount of physical intimidation. Once he was removed from the room, Danny began to speak again.
American Jewry, apart from the Orthodox and a minority of committed non-Orthodox, is demographically imploding.Israel too Jewish? Top US mag thinks so
Paradoxically, this is taking place at a time when support for Israel among the American people is at an all-time high and traditional antisemitism is at its lowest level. Jewish education among non-Orthodox Jews is catastrophic, with widespread ignorance of Judaism and understanding about Israel. Assimilation is rampant, with intermarriage levels reaching 70%.
Although right-wing antisemitism has made headlines, the real threat emanates from the viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic Left and the growing numbers of Muslim extremists.
Under normal circumstances, a proud Jewish community supported by most Americans could neutralize these negative elements. However, the crisis is largely internal. In the past, American Jews, with valid historical justifications, have always had a penchant for liberalism. Their attachments to Israel and Judaism were synonymous and liberal political forces were Israel’s strongest supporters, while conservatives were less inclined to support the Jewish state.
However, over the past two decades, the far Left has become viciously anti-Israeli, even supporting terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and depicting Israel as an imperialist occupier.
This trend reached a climax under US president Barack Obama, who made overtures to the Iranians and treated Israel politically as a rogue state.
Reading The New Yorker was like being in a place where good people relaxed and reasoned together. That was before.New Israel Fund blames human error for pro-BDS post
These days only radical leftists need apply for positions as writers or readers and this reader finally had enough. I said so when the abuse against Trump began to feel like abuse against me. Smear tactics do that – everybody gets splattered with mud. So I quit the reading as often as messages came in urging me to read the latest, which comes in Daily and sent directly to Trash.
Plus I operated on the assumption that people who detest Trump also detest Israel. Back and forth, it is a mutual loathing society. Don’t ask me why.
But then came a piece titled, “Israel at Seventy. Is The Right Winning the Culture War?” I swam right in. Perhaps Remnick had a change of heart.
He is Jewish after all. In all of us, we are told, there is a pintele yid, a spark of Jewishness. No chance, not with Jews who have turned so far Left.
Take it from me, a hand in several newsrooms, that you can take any story and twist it into any shape. You can take any hero and turn him into a villain.
It’s how you slant it from the start, how you bury the lead (or lede), how you call a person a terrorist instead of an activist, or name someone a settler rather than a patriot.
More on all that in the newsroom thriller, “The Bathsheba Deadline.”
Or you can take any country and decide to go bright or dark. On Israel at its Birthday, The New Yorker chose the dark side, naturally; it’s as reflexive as a yawn.
The New Israel Fund (NIF) blamed "human error" after one of its affiliated organizations shared a Facebook post calling for a boycott of Israel.Jewish Progressives Accuse Starbucks of ‘Giving in’ to ‘Purveyors of Hatred’ After ADL Excluded From Anti-Bias Training
Last week, the Adalah Arab legal aid organization shared a link to an Amnesty International petition calling on an arms boycott to Israel for what it alleged was the IDF's warrantless killing of Gazans.
"The time for symbolic statements of condemnation is over," read the post. "Israel is carrying out a murderous attack against Palestinians protesting in Gaza, with its armed forces killing and maiming protesters who pose no immediate threat."
The New Israel Fund has given Adalah $2 million over the last decade. However, the NIF says that the fund will not support an organization calling for a boycott of Israel.
According to the NIF, it "opposes the boycott and will not support any organization calling for a boycott. Regarding the post, this was a human error and the post was removed from Adalah's Facebook page."
Jewish progressives have issued an angry response to the decision of coffee giant Starbucks to exclude the Anti-Defamation League from its upcoming daylong anti-bias training session.Pro-Farrakhan Women's March leader tours Israel
The session was called following the arrest at a Philadelphia Starbucks of two black men who asked to use the bathroom without making a purchase as they waited to meet a business associate. A video of the arrest went viral, prompting a public backlash and the trending hashtag #BoycottStarbucks.
The training session uses materials from a number of civil rights and anti-bias organizations, including the ADL. After Starbucks announced on April 17 that it intended to temporarily shutter 8,000 stores for one day of anti-bias training, far-left activists took to social media to denounce the company for including the ADL. A statement from Cat Brooks, the co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, caught the general mood of hostility. “You can’t be a piece of an anti-bias training when you openly support a racist, oppressive and brutal colonization of Palestine,” she declared.
On Tuesday, Jewish progressives from the Zioness movement — which describes itself as “a coalition of activists and allies that express their Zionist and progressive values through collective action” — denounced Starbucks for “capitulating” to political pressure, pointing out as well that many of the ADL’s adversaries are linked to Louis Farrakhan’s antisemitic Nation of Islam (NoI).
Tamika Mallory, the Women's March leader who was the subject of criticism for her support of antisemitic preacher Louis Farrakhan, is touring Israel this week.Yisrael Medad: Tamika Mallory and Her Use of "Rejection"
Mallory has been visiting sites across the region with a delegation from the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
"In #Jerusalem for today," she tweeted on Monday. "Already witnessing the similarities with America." The CCR says the group "brought together mostly Black and Brown civil and human rights leaders working on domestic US justice issues who have not had an opportunity to visit Palestine and Israel." The trip, the organization said, "was planned to provide an opportunity to better understand the human rights situation in Israel and Palestine, including the history of systematic displacement and institutional racism, as well as the work of human rights defenders there."
On Tuesday Mallory shared that the group had heard from the Grassroots Jerusalem NGO "on Israeli land confiscation, settlements and other discriminatory policies towards Palestinian Jerusalemites." She also visited Hebron this week, saying afterwards that she is "still processing all the emotions around what I saw and what we experienced as a group. I am deeply troubled!"
Mallory rose to fame last year as one of the leaders of the Women's March, which was held in January 2017 as a protest against US President Donald Trump. But earlier this year, she found herself at the center of controversy when she attended a speech by Farrakhan where he — as is typical for the Nation of Islam leader — railed against the Jews and called them satanic.
Mallory later deleted photos of herself and Farrakhan from social media, and, after a week of criticism, issued a statement that she opposed "anti-black racism, antisemitism, homophobia & transphobia," but did not specifically condemn the Nation of Islam leader.
And last week Mallory criticized Starbucks for saying it would include the Anti-Defamation League in its upcoming bias training, saying the group is “constantly attacking black and brown people.” The ADL had criticized Mallory for her ties to Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
Tamika Mallory seems to me to be skimming anti-Semitism writing during her trip here in Israel:Law Enforcement, Jewish Groups Need to Start Taking Anti-Israel Protests More Seriously
"The story of [Jesus'] birth represents so much. As black Christians the rejection is particularly familiar."
She and a "JusticeDelegation" was also
briefed by @GrassrootsJlem on Israeli land confiscation, settlements and other discriminatory policies towards Palestinian Jerusalemites
To get back to that use of "rejection", What/Whose "rejection"?
By Jewish landlords so the parents couldn't have nice accommodations?
By Jewish religious leaders who didn't think Jesus was the Son of God?
Pro-Palestinian activists have a long history of disrupting Israel-connected events. They shout down speakers, block entrances and exits, and even physically attack speakers and participants. Up until now, these tactics have often been successful because law enforcement authorities have handled these pro-Palestinian activists, for the most part, with kid gloves. Yet, this policy may be inviting more disruptions and more violent attacks of an ever more dangerous kind.DAVE RUBIN: It Will Come for You
It should be clear that most of these pro-Palestinian activists are not generic supporters of human rights. They often have long histories of support for terrorism and violence. Some even have criminal records. And their behavior seems to show a pattern of slowly escalating violence. This trend is worrisome and, unfortunately, the relevant authorities do not appear to be taking it seriously enough. It only takes a handful of deranged and dangerous individuals — or only one — to commit a truly devastating act of violence. And thus far, law enforcement agencies have failed to identify and interdict those who may have a propensity to attack Israelis and Jews at pro-Israel events. We have been lucky so far. But we may not be lucky forever.
This grave concern is illustrated by a recent incident. In October 2017, pro-Palestinian activists infiltrated an event for my organization Reservists on Duty (ROD), held at the Lincoln Square Synagogue in New York. At ROD, we bring reserve IDF soldiers to foreign countries to advocate for Israel. Once inside the synagogue, the anti-Israel activists began heckling the participants. Then they became more aggressive. One activist rushed one of the speakers and had to be restrained. The NYPD removed the attackers from the main sanctuary of the synagogue, but they were quickly released. No charges were filed and no criminal investigation took place.
At the time, I pointed out that “Police did an efficient job by pushing the attackers out, but no one was arrested. And these guys are already free, after they ruined our event.”
South Carolina passes bill to fight antisemitism on campus
South Carolina has become the first US state to pass legislation to fight antisemitism on campus, after supporters of the measure said it would help colleges battle discrimination amid growing numbers of such incidents nationwide.Major New Billboard Campaign Targets New York Times’ Bias Against Israel
The bill passed the South Carolina House by 86 votes to 4 late on Wednesday. Its sponsor, Republican Representative Alan Clemmons, said its passage showed the state was "leading the fight against antisemitism." Opponents of the measure said they thought it went too far into censoring critics of Israel's government.
Governor Henry McMaster was expected to sign the measure into law when it reaches his desk, a spokesman said.
The number of antisemitic incidents in the United States surged by 57 percent last year, the Anti-Defamation League said in February. The advocacy group said that marked the largest single-year increase on record.
The legislation defines antisemitism as including calling for attacks on Jews, blaming Israel for all political tensions, and denying its right to exist. Opponents of the bill had argued it trampled on free speech and could stifle academic debate.
The bill says colleges must consider its definition of antisemitism when investigating allegations of discrimination on campus.
This week, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) targeted The New York Times for its anti-Israel bias with a giant billboard outside the paper’s office windows.Toothless IPSO upholds CAA complaint against The Telegraph over Oliver Smith’s Jewish conspiracy article, but disgracefully fails to investigate editorial failures
The billboard reads: “The New York Times – At it AGAIN: Defaming Israel with distorted ‘news.’ Stop the bias.”
Andrea Levin, CAMERA’s executive director, stated, “The billboard represents the collective voice of hundreds of thousands of people frustrated at the Times’s shoddy reporting and bias against Israel. We're inundated with complaints about the New York Times, and for good reason.”
In the first four months of 2018 alone, the Times has published a voluminous amount of factual errors; so many, in fact, that CAMERA created what it calls a “New York Times Line,” a timeline that tracks the egregious faults. Ironically, the paper recently ran an ad campaign that lauded the paper as the arbiter of truth.
Levin added, “Numerous examples of error-ridden articles at the Times have been documented by CAMERA analysts. There are years when the coverage seems more attentive to objectivity and balance and other times when opinion pours into the 'news' and editors allow this – and refuse to correct clearcut factual errors. We seem to be back in one of those periods."
CAMERA has listed the errors here. (fixed)
Gilead Ini, a senior research analyst at CAMERA, pointed out, “All we ask is that the Times live up to its own standards of accuracy and accountability. The New York Times can and should provide excellent journalism, but unfortunately its coverage of Israel right now is often marred by errors, bias, and significant omissions. In the recent Gaza violence driven by Hamas, to mention just one instance, the Times termed the barrages of fire bombs, rocks and attempts to tear down the border fence an 'experiment with nonviolent protest'."
The Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) has upheld a complaint by Campaign Against Antisemitism over the publication by The Telegraph of a claim that the Rothschild family controlled all of the central banks in all of the countries in the world except for Cuba, Iran and North Korea. The antisemitic myth is frequently used by antisemites to claim that any acts against those nations are in fact secret machinations by world Jewry to overthrow the last strongholds of resistance to Jewish dominance.German rappers accused of anti-Semitic lyrics to visit Auschwitz
Whilst we welcome IPSO’s decision to uphold our complaint, we consider the remedy proposed to be toothless, leaving us concerned that ISPO is unfit for purpose.
We complained directly to The Telegraph after the newspaper’s Travel Editor, Oliver Smith, wrote and published a list of the only three countries in the world which “don’t have a central bank owned or controlled by the Rothschild family”, listing Cuba, North Korea and Iran.
We did not anticipate complaining to IPSO at all, merely seeking action by the newspaper itself to explain how Mr Smith had come to publish the claim, as it can only be found on extreme antisemitic website. Whilst Mr Smith apologised to us in a private e-mail, claiming that he is not antisemitic and picked up the antisemitic myth from a website which looked innocuous, he ignored requests to name the website when it was pointed out that no innocent-looking websites publish such antisemitic material, the only ones that do being specialist antisemitic forums and blogs.
When Campaign Against Antisemitism pushed the point, The Telegraph’s Head of Compliance, Jess McAree, stepped in and said that if we pursued our complaint they would not publish an article already cleared for publication by the newspaper’s compliance team, insisting that the apparent threat was merely the implementation of the newspaper’s policies. In the end we refused to back down and published the article on our own website.
Due to the handling of the matter by Mr Smith and Mr McAree, we complained to IPSO. Whilst IPSO has now ruled in Campaign Against Antisemitism’s favour, the outcome of its laborious complaints process however is that The Telegraph has published a well-buried apology on its website only, and that is all.
Two German rappers who have been under fire for song lyrics that lightheartedly referred to Auschwitz inmates are going to pay a visit to the former death camp in formerly Nazi-occupied Poland.Sixty senior rabbis call for end to ‘evil crime’ of live animal shipments
The Bild newspaper reported Thursday that rappers Kollegah and Farid Bang have accepted an invitation from the International Auschwitz Committee to visit the memorial on June 3 to learn more about what took place there.
Some 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were killed at Auschwitz and the adjoining Birkenau camp.
The two have been widely criticized for a track on their new album that contains the phrase “my body more defined than Auschwitz inmates.” They’ve defended the line as artistic freedom and not political opinion.
Liberation of children from Auschwitz-Birkenau. (HistClo.com)
Dusseldorf prosecutors said this week that individuals have filed legal complaints against the rappers and they have opened obligatory preliminary investigations of them.
The pair has come under pressure from Holocaust survivor groups as well as from within the artistic community. A speaker who condemned the stars at April’s Echo Award ceremony received a standing ovation from the audience, and several artists returned their gongs in protest after Kollegah and Farid Bang won the award for having 2017’s best-selling hip-hop album, “Young, Brutal and Handsome 3.”
The award ceremony was held as Israel marked Yom HaShoah, its Holocaust Remembrance Day, dedicated to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II.
One of Israel’s most senior rabbis has ruled that anyone buying meat from animals shipped from overseas to Israel for slaughter in cruel conditions is a partner to a crime.Security tight for Tunisian Jews at Africa's oldest synagogue
In a letter released Thursday by animal rights activists, Rabbi Yehuda Deri, chief rabbi of the southern city of Beersheba and a member of the Chief Rabbinate’s Council, called on every rabbi in Israel to protest the long-distance shipments of sheep and cattle for fattening and slaughter in Israel.
He said he planned to raise the issue at an upcoming meeting of the council.
“It is clear… that whoever buys this meat is a partner to and helps those committing an evil crime, ” he wrote. “Every rabbi in Israel must take part in this protest until the issue is resolved.”
The letter was released along with a petition against the shipments signed by 60 leading rabbis from across the religious spectrum.
Screenshot from Australian TV’s “60 Minutes” broadcast about live shipments, “Sheep, Ships and Videotape,” shown April 8, 2018.
It came in the wake of an exposé by Animals Australia, broadcast on Australian TV’s “60 Minutes,” into the appalling conditions in which sheep were shipped to the Middle East on five journeys.
The petition says it is “neither the way of the Torah nor of human morality to allow such cruelty to animals.”
Under tight security at Africa's oldest synagogue, Jewish pilgrims on Wednesday staged their biggest religious ceremony in Tunisia since a 2011 revolution undermined security in the North African country.Israeli device would let pregnant women take ultrasound scans on phone
Mainly Muslim Tunisia is home to one of North Africa's largest Jewish communities. Though they now number less than 2,000 people, Jews have lived in Tunisia since Roman times.
In 2011, after the uprising that toppled former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the annual celebration was canceled, and in following years only a few hundred attended, fearing attacks by hard-line Islamists.
This year, revelers chanted and danced in a two-day pilgrimage to the El Ghriba synagogue at the popular tourist island resort of Djerba 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Tunis.
"The security situation is excellent here and this has encouraged us to come back. ... Today we feel safer in Tunisia than in Paris," Isabel Guez, a Jewish visitor from Paris, told Reuters.
"This celebration is a great opportunity for approchement between Muslims, Jews and other religions and an opportunity to call for peace and love across the world," she added.
An Israeli startup is in the final stages of developing a revolutionary handheld ultrasound device that will allow pregnant women to check on the health of their baby using only a smartphone.Intel to get $380 million grant from Israel to expand local chip manufacturing
PulseNmore LTD. says its device can connect to any smartphone, displaying the images on its screen and sending them to the pregnant woman’s personal doctor for examination, Hadashot TV reported Tuesday.
The invention could revolutionize ultrasound tests and the frequency in which expectant mothers check on their unborn child, especially in Israel, where women undergo 6-8 tests on average, according to Prof. Israel Meisner, head of the Obstetric Ultrasound Unit at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva.
“The new development has one big advantage, which is the calming effect,” Meisner told Hadashot. “Women sometimes don’t feel movement, call their doctor and are told to go to an emergency room. Here there’s the option to put a phone on her stomach and see her baby.”
“The purpose is to use it only when necessary, when there’s anxiety,” Dr. Elazar Sonnenschein, co-founder of PulseNmore, told the TV station.
Intel is set to receive a $380 million grant from the Israeli government to support its plans of expanding chip manufacturing in the country, one person familiar with the matter said in an interview with Calcalist, speaking on condition of anonymity. If approved, the grant will be the largest ever awarded by the Israeli government to a non-Israeli company for a single investment.Heart Device Maker Gets $70 Million in Funding, Leading Israeli Startups for April
Intel and the Israeli government, represented by Israel’s Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy and the country’s tax authorities, are on the verge of signing the deal, the person familiar with the matter said. The government has approved Intel's plan on a conditional basis but Intel still has to submit a detailed plan, that person said.
Intel declined to comment.
On Thursday, Intel published its financial reports for the first quarter of 2018, beating its earning expectations and upping its full-year revenue and profit forecasts. The boost in earnings was in part driven by the success of the company’s data center business. Following the report, Intel’s stock reached a five-year high.
The largest investment in an Israeli company during April 2018 was $70 million raised by Caesarea-based V-Wave, which is about to start multicenter clinical trials of its minimally invasive implanted interatrial shunt device for treating patients with severe symptomatic heart failure.Lag Ba'omer with Jamiroquai sets Rishon ablaze, burns BDS
The round was led by Deerfield Management with participation of existing investors Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Edwards Lifesciences, along with BRM Group, Pontifax, Pura Vida Investments, TriVentures, BioStar Ventures and Israel Secondary Fund; and new investors Endeavour Vision, Quark Venture and Aperture Venture Partners.
A $19.75 million Series B round was completed in April by Guesty, a Tel Aviv-based company that developed a platform for property owners to manage Airbnb reservations and now plans to enter the vacation rental market. The round was led by TLV Partners with existing investors Magma VC and Buran VC.
Data backup and recovery innovator OwnBackup of New Jersey and Tel Aviv raised $15.5 million in April. The round was co-led by new investor Vertex Ventures and existing investor Insight Venture Partners. Existing investors Innovation Endeavors, Oryzn Capital and Salesforce Ventures also participated in the round.
Jamiroquai, the British acid-jazz-turned-techno-funk band from 1992, brought together two generations of Israeli fans Wednesday night in an evening of electric energy, epic tunes and groove at the Rishon LeTzion Live Park.Jamiroquai's Message to "Bullsh*t" BDS: "F-Off!" (h/t IsraellyCool)
After a number of Israeli bands gave warm-up performances, at around 9:30 pm, Jamiroquai's lead singer, Jason Kaye (known to fans as Jay Kay - and no, he's not a joke) took to the stage in his iconic, iridescent porcupine helmet, the quills of which opened and closed to the beat of the music.
"Shalom, Tel Aviv!" he began, oblivious to the fact that Rishon LeTzion is not quite Tel Aviv.
"Well, it took 25 years, but we're here," he continued, noting the fact that this is the band's first visit to Israel in its quarter-decade history. "Still alive. I'm happy to be here."
On that note, he segued into the opening of the night with "Shake It On," one of the better-known songs from the band's newest album, Automaton, after which its current tour is named.
At first it was unclear whether the 48-year-old Jay Kay still had it in him to rock a show like he used to in his golden days. Clad in a long, neon-yellow-sleeved jacket, black gloves and heavy jeans, 10 minutes into the concert he was unmistakably sweating faucets. But when he paused to speak again after the first song, the energy level skyrocketed and the audience was his for the remainder of the night.
"You know, when you're my age you get a lot of bullshit," he said to laughter and applause from the crowd. "People telling me not to come to Israel? Bullshit. Bullshit!"
The US must stop returning stolen property to Arab states
By signing Memoranda of Understanding with Middle East governments and drawing up Red Lists, US institutions have become complicit in the theft of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples of the Middle East and rubs salt in the wounds of their ethnic cleansing. The most blatant example of this is the US government's pledge to return the Jewish archive to Iraq, a collection of books and documents belonging to the Iraqi Jews in exile. Carole Basri and David Dangoor write in The Hill:
This cultural appropriation is taking place because of the Emergency Protection for Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act of 2004, as amended effective April 30, 2008. Similarly, memorandums of understanding have been signed and enacted as recently as February 2018 for Syria, Egypt and Libya, where Jewish property, history and assets are being appropriated and stolen.
In Yemen, where Jews long have lived in second-class status with the threat of death by senior officials, all but a few Jews have fled the country. Some who fled grabbed what they could, such as religious possessions, but even these ultimately could be returned to Yemen.
On Jan. 31, 2018, the International Council of Museums released a Red List for Yemen that directly targets Hebrew manuscripts and Torah finials. The Red List notes, “Yemeni authorities will ask for the retrieval and the repatriation” of these items. Frequently, issuing a Red List is the first step in a process to hold public hearings and ultimately pass memorandums of understanding between the United States and foreign governments that blockade art and cultural property, denying U.S. citizens the rights to their historic heritage.
An ancient sect, a brazen theft and the hunt to bring the stolen manuscripts home
Before dawn on March 21, 1995, someone broke into a synagogue in the Palestinian city of Nablus.Unearthed Bar Kochba coin points to far-reaching support for rebels against Rome
The thief — maybe it was a band of thieves — crossed the carpeted sanctuary, pulled back a heavy velvet curtain, and opened a carved wooden ark. Inside were two handwritten copies of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses. One was a sheepskin scroll written around 1360 and kept in a slender copper case. The other was a codex, a thick book, probably from the 15th century and bound in a maroon leather cover. The thief or thieves snatched the manuscripts, escaped through the synagogue's arched doorway, discarded the copper case in a stairwell, and vanished.
These were no ordinary texts. They were perhaps the most ancient Torahs stolen in the Holy Land since the Crusaders pillaged Jerusalem. And they belonged not to Jews but to the Samaritans, one of the world's oldest and tiniest religious sects. Known from the New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan, the group has barely survived. Centuries ago, it numbered more than 1 million; today, according to the last count, there are only 810 Samaritans left.
The Samaritans trace their roots to the ancient Israelites and regard themselves as the most loyal followers of the word of God as transmitted to Moses. Women are kept apart from others when menstruating in adherence with ritual purity, and men sacrifice sheep each year on Passover, a biblical commandment Jews gave up millennia ago.
If the Samaritans are the true keepers of the biblical faith, their Torahs are title deeds: rare and sacred manuscripts, written in a variation of the original Israelite script that Jews abandoned long ago and featuring passages scholars say preserve some of the earliest drafts of the Bible. Of the three dozen old biblical manuscripts left in the community's coffers, the Samaritans say one is the oldest in the world, written by Moses' great-grandnephew. These manuscripts are the Samaritans' most jealously guarded possessions, and collectors across the globe have gone to great lengths to get their hands on them.
So have thieves.
Even as the Jewish people on Lag B’Omer Thursday celebrate the heroism of Simon Bar Kochba in rebelling against the pagan ruling Roman Empire in 132 CE, a tangible symbol of the revolt — a single bronze coin — was recently discovered in a limestone cave outside of the central Israeli city of Modiin.
The discovery of a single bronze coin from the Bar Kochba Revolt so far from the Jerusalem area, until recently considered the center of the rebel’s efforts, is important evidence for historians in corroborating the broad geographical spread of the revolt and its supporters, who presumably took refuge in the new Modiin cave.
Historians have traditionally held that the revolt had little support among residents who lived north of Jerusalem. This coin, along with recent discoveries of other refugee caves, points to rebel activity in the area.
The coin is etched on one side with a seven-branched date tree bearing two bunches of dates, and the inscription “Shin-mem-ayin” for Shimon, the leader of the revolt. On the other is a grape leaf and the abbreviated inscription, “Leherut Yerushalayim” or “For the Freedom of Jerusalem.”
The coin was unearthed during continuing excavations in the West Bank in an archaeological project launched in 2014 to survey southern Samaria. It is a joint excavation between COGAT — the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Bar-Ilan University, and Ariel University.
“We assume there are many archaeological artifacts that have not yet been discovered in the Judea and Samaria region,” said Hananiya Hizmi, head of the COGAT archaeology unit. “We are working in cooperation with many bodies, with the goal of uncovering and discovering historical pieces from the Jewish people in the area.”
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