Wednesday, October 17, 2018
The Failure of Holocaust Education in Britain
Pearce said that there is a fundamental problem in the British approach to the Holocaust. The focus wrongly gravitates to Britain’s role in the Allied forces, the liberation of the camps, and to the story of Kindertransport, in which 10,000 Jewish children were brought to the U.K. from the continent in the year before WWII broke out. For Pearce it is a positive and self-congratulatory approach that fails to address the story of the Channel Islands, which were occupied by the Germans, and what the British government knew about the persecution of the Jews and failed to do about it. It is no surprise, he said, that his team found that 32 percent of students in secondary school believe that Britain declared war on Germany because of the Holocaust. In fact, Britain entered the war on Sept. 3, 1939, in response to the German invasion of Poland.'Free Palestine' scrawled on Holocaust educational advertisement in London
Pearce pointed out that teachers who have no support tend to use films and books, like John Boyne’s novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, as teaching aids. The Holocaust Education Trust advises against its use in the classroom because of its historical inaccuracy, yet the UCL team found that over 80 percent of those pupils interviewed who had read a book on the Holocaust had read that one. The main character in the novel is a 9-year-old boy whose father works as a commander of a concentration camp. He has no idea of the tragedy unfolding around him and innocently befriends a Jewish boy in striped pyjamas. Pearce said the narrative reinforces an inaccurate perception of German ignorance of the Holocaust.
The UCL team also examined what teachers hope to achieve by teaching the Holocaust. Pearce noted that educators have “a tendency to slip into rhetoric. There is a belief that if we study the Holocaust it will stop it happening again.” He added, “It is laudable but it reduces and simplifies history and is something that again comes from wider popular culture.” Indeed the recent decision to build a striking new national Holocaust memorial next to the Houses of Parliament in London was described by the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission as a “sacred duty” and announced by a government press release as a “permanent statement of our British values.”
In order to tackle these issues, Pearce said, we must totally rethink the way we teach children about the Holocaust. Mike Levy, a Holocaust educator based in Cambridge, sees the passing of the last Holocaust survivors as an opportunity to do this. He said that rethinking needs to start now, before Holocaust education simply stops when the last survivor dies.
Levy said that there is “an atmosphere of fatigue in the air when it comes to talking about the Holocaust and that students and teachers want to learn more about other genocides and contextualize the Holocaust.” Children need to be taught that there is not a competition about which genocide is worse. “The important thing educationally about the Holocaust is it teaches us a lot about the mechanisms because it is so well documented,” he said. “It is the mother of all genocides.”
An educational advertisement for a Kristallnacht exhibit was defaced in London's Russell Square, social media images showed on Tuesday.
The subway advertisement, circulated by The Wiener Library, was written on by a passer-by, inscribing the words "Free Palestine" with a heart drawn to the side of the statement.
Displayed within the elevators at Russel Square Train Station, the Wiener Library has said that the posters are, "Definitely vulnerable to vandalism (it has happened multiple times in the past) but as the vast majority of people who visit us do so because they see the posters ceasing would be hugely detrimental to us."
The Wiener Library has expressed their disdain and sadness with the vandalism of the poster. The poster was purposed to advertise an exhibit on Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass" recalling the pogrom that occurred against the Jewish community in Nazi Germany November 9th-10th, 1938; a topic related closely with the Holocaust.
New York Times Depiction of Moynihan as ‘Anti-Trump’ Ignores Jerusalem Embassy
An article by a New York Times reporter uses the release of a new documentary about Daniel Patrick Moynihan to describe the former senator from New York as, according to the Times headline, “the anti-Trump.”
The article ignores ways that Moynihan and Trump are similar.
President Trump moved the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, implementing the Jerusalem Embassy Act that was introduced by Senator Moynihan. Moynihan’s aides used to describe this as Moynihan’s “signature issue.”
A front-page article in The New York Times itself from 1984 reported on President Reagan’s threat to veto the Moynihan Jerusalem embassy legislation, and reported, “The bill, introduced by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, a Democrat, has more than 30 sponsors in the Senate and more than 200 in the House.”
Senator Bob Dole’s press release introducing the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 1995 said, “Today, I am introducing S. 1322, the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 1995. I am pleased to do so with the distinguished senior Senator from New York, Senator Moynihan, as the lead co-sponsor. As the Senate knows, Senator Moynihan has been the expert and the leader on Jerusalem for his entire career.”
Moynihan was famous for defending Israel at the United Nations as America’s ambassador there in 1975 when the General Assembly passed its infamous resolution describing Zionism as racism. Trump too has been a staunch defender of Israel at the United Nations, as has his ambassador there, Nikki Haley.
Ivory Tower Bigots
Anti-Zionism is a form of racism like any other: The erasing of a nation’s experience, the denial of their right to speak. Often it comes twinned with the old anti-Semitic gestures. Jews are cruel, enjoying domination for its own sake; they are money-hungry and care nothing about others. They are, in fact, a world historical evil, unique among the nations. The fact that American universities are the new breeding ground for this moral idiocy is no surprise, since the academy has so often provided a home for repellent ideologies. Now that Stalinism and Maoism are passé, anti-Zionism has become the latest way to excuse massacres, now rechristened “resistance,” in the name of history.Jewish woman said kicked in the face while protesting UK Labour anti-Semitism
“The Zionists are committing astonishing acts of vulgar thievery in full view of people around the globe,” wrote Hamid Dabashi, a tenured professor at Columbia University, earlier this year. Israel, he said, rules over Arabs “with brutish violence and unmatched vulgarity.” Dabashi, the Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, had earlier argued that decades of “systematic maiming and murdering” of Palestinians had left “deep marks on the faces of these people,” Israeli Jews: on “the way they talk, the way they walk, the way they handle objects, the way they greet each other, the way they look at the world … a vulgarity of character that is bone-deep.”
Dabashi made his comments in the South Atlantic Quarterly, the prestigious academic journal published by Duke—proof that anti-Semitic drivel is the one form of overt bigotry that many elite schools not only tolerate but encourage. Not all campus anti-Semites sound like Hamid Dabashi. Some take pains to present an objective scholarly front. But the front is a sham. Many are propagandists rather than scholars. Some of these people are Jewish, and no doubt think of themselves as philo-Semites rather than anti-Semites, as long as the Jews in question are the good, anti-Zionist ones, like themselves. But anti-Semitic tropes make up the backbone of their work. They treat Israel as a unique evil among the nations. Their wish to erase Israel from the map makes them part of the discourse of anti-Semitism, which, like all racism, is structural.
Don’t get me wrong: Our campuses are not crawling with overt Jew hatred. Some ambivalence about Israel stems, quite legitimately, from the failures of Israeli policy. Many a grad student has critiqued “the Zionist project” while at the same time feeling a real attachment to Jews and Jewishness. But anti-Semitic themes can subtly infect your thinking without your knowing it: judging Israel by harsher standards than you apply to any other nation, or supposing that Jewish nationalism must stem from prejudice rather than a wish to be a free people. Anti-Semitism, like anti-black racism, affects even people who simply can’t believe they might be prejudiced. A strident bias against Jewish nationalism tends to involve someone in anti-Semitic tropes, whether intentionally or not. The anti-Zionist Jew tries to ignore the fact that an overwhelming majority of the world’s Jews believe that Israel should exist, and that close to half of them are Israeli. By campaigning against Zionism, students and faculty construct a historical fantasyland of non-Zionist Jewishness that can survive only in a somewhat unreal environment like the university campus. The fantasy is that Israel, like racist South Africa, will be replaced by what the late Muammar al-Qaddafi called “Isratine,” a sheer chimera: the mating of sworn enemies where all will live in harmony and terrorism will magically vanish because, as we all know, it’s only Israeli oppression that causes terrorism.
A demonstrator protesting Labour’s handling of its anti-Semitism problem was kicked in the face outside a meeting of pro-Palestinian supporters of the party in London, witnesses said.David Collier: Hypocritical tweets and violence, why a Jewish protestor ends up in hospital
The incident, which left the protester moderately injured, occurred on Tuesday night outside the Mayton Street venue for an event titled “Corbyn, Antisemitism and Justice for Palestine – North London.” It was attended by the UK leader of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and anti-Israel activists.
“Police is on scene treating injured Jewish protester who was kicked in the face,” David Collier, a blogger who specializes in covering anti-Israel activity in the United Kingdom, wrote about the incident.
Cliff Dixon, a protester who was at the scene, said there were two female attackers at the event, including at least one who assaulted the alleged victim, whom he said was Jewish.
“70 year old Jewish lady had her phone stolen and beaten by two girls, I was threatened and told I would be ‘dealt with’,” he wrote on Twitter. “When myself and some others tried to stop the second girl attacking her, we were shoved away by security including a particularly vile man in a grey sweatshirt who accused me of being far right and said he would ‘deal with me’ later as he knows who I am,” he added.
Incitement against Jewish peopleTeen Charged With Hate Crime After Assault on Crown Heights Jewish Man
See how quickly violence is excused and the blame is shifted onto the protestors even though the video evidence clearly shows an unprovoked physical attack. Yet these posts/tweets highlight the danger of Corbynism to British Jews. Protest becomes ‘disruption’. Opposing Corbyn makes you ‘far-right’. Zionists are ‘violent’ in the way they look at you. Jews who have voices are smeared through non-existent association. Zionists become ‘daleks’. It is the Jews who ‘threaten’, even as one is transported in an ambulance to hospital.
This whole pro-Corbyn movement is based on 90%+ of Jewish people being as bad if not worse than the Nazis. Think about that label and what it justifies. If Jews are Nazis, then who wouldn’t want to hurt them? If there was a real-life Nazi at the end of my garden, I’d sure want to take a pop. Jews are Nazis, and Israel, the homeland of the Jews, is a racist endeavour. These antisemitic labels are the very elements of the IHRA that this circus is trying to oppose.
When two people attack protestors standing by the Israeli flag, it is likely because the pro-Corbyn movement are publicly teaching their supporters that Jews are fascists and racists. That Jews are so powerful the ‘enlightened public’ aren’t even allowed to talk about it. They are taught that Antisemitism in Labour does not exist and Jews are using their power to silence dissent. If you haven’t seen it yet, that message is coming to a town near you. It is a show running nationwide. A show called ‘Corbyn’s Labour’.
A Brooklyn teenager has been charged with a hate crime following an unprovoked attack on a Jewish man in the New York borough’s Crown Heights section.Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories Proliferate in UK’s Labour Party
Local news outlet Crown Heights Info reported that the incident occurred on Monday afternoon at the intersection of Empire Boulevard and Albany Avenue. The victim was accosted as he was crossing the street by a black teenager carrying a wooden stick. When the victim realized he was about to be assaulted, he attempted to flee into a dry cleaning store owned by a friend and was struck by the assailant on the back and shoulder as he ran. The stick broke in half and the assailant then threw the second piece into the store, striking both the victim and another bystander and causing further injuries.
The assailant was apprehended minutes later by police and Jewish community Shomrim. Arresting officers said the teen had been released less than 30 minutes prior to the violent assault, after he was caught shoplifting from a neighborhood bodega. He has now been charged with felony assault, menacing, harassment, criminal possession of a weapon, as well as a hate crime.
Monday’s attack came one day after two Jewish men were injured in a hate crime attack in Boro Park. A Jewish man walking home from synagogue was kicked and beaten by an assailant who jumped out of his car to carry out the attack. A second Jewish man who came to the first man’s aid was similarly chased and attacked by the assailant.
Conspiracy theories can usually be found in environments where antisemitism is substantially present. The classic, most extreme case — a fallacy originating from czarist Russia — is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Many extreme antisemitic conspiracy theories also flourish in the Arab world.Farrakhan compares Jews to termites, says Jews are ‘stupid’
In the stories about the antisemitism scandal in the UK Labour Party, a slew of conspiracy theories by elected party members have come to the fore. Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s leader since 2015, is a terrorist sympathizer, supporter of Holocaust distorters, anti-Israel inciter, and part-time antisemite.
He has also promoted conspiracy theories about Israel.
In 2012, Corbyn was interviewed by the Iranian propaganda outlet Press TV. Corbyn commented on a terrorist attack at an Egyptian Army base in the Sinai Peninsula, where 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed. The Labour leader suggested that Israel was behind the attack, because it supposedly had an interest in increased violence in the Sinai and destabilizing the Muslim Brotherhood regime.
Corbyn said: “In whose interests is it to kill Egyptians other than Israel, concerned about the growing closeness of relationships between Palestine and the new Egyptian government?” He added: “I suspect the hand of Israel in this whole process of destabilization.”
In 2010, Corbyn spoke at a meeting of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in London. He mentioned the shooting of Turkish activists on a Gaza flotilla ship by Israeli commandos after they were attacked by the passengers. He claimed that British MPs made pro-Israel speeches in parliament on this issue, with a pre-prepared script.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has once again provoked controversy by comparing Jews to termites and calling Jewish people stupid in a speech he gave earlier this week at an event marking the 23rd anniversary of the so-called “Million Man March” in Washington, DC in 1995.Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar Deletes Instagram Post Calling His Terrorist Grandfather a 'Legend'
“White people don’t like Farrakhan,” he said in his speech at the event on Sunday, a clip of which was posted on his Twitter account on Wednesday.
I'm not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite.“To the members of the Jewish community that don’t like me, thank you very much for putting my name all over the planet because of your fear of what we represent,” he continued.
— MINISTER FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan)
Farrakhan was referring to the strong reaction to antisemitic comments he made in a speech in May this year when he talked of “Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”
“I can go anywhere in the world and they’ve heard of Farrakhan,” he continued. “Thank you very much.”
“I’m not mad at you because you’re so stupid,” he continued, apparently still addressing Jews.
Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar has deleted an Instagram post in which he referred to his grandfather, Palestinian terrorist Muhammad Yousef al-Najjar, as a “legend.”Muslim politician in Sweden asked to resign after it’s exposed that he wants to kill the leaders of the US and Israel
Muhammad Yousef al-Najjar was “was “a senior member of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September that murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics,” according to the Times of Israel, and a deputy for Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat.
Earlier this year, when Campa-Najjar’s roots were first reported, he condemned his grandfather’s actions and supported peace.
But in a 2015 Instagram post praising his father, who is a former Palestinian Authority (PA) official and Palestinian ambassador, Campa-Najjar referred to his grandfather as a “legend.” He offered no criticism or condemnation of his grandfather’s terrorist acts.
Breitbart News reported the existence of that Instagram post on Monday, as well as another in which he noted that his family was close to Yasser Arafat’s. The Campa-Najjar campaign declined to comment, and by Tuesday both posts had been taken down, and the account made “private.” Both posts, however, survive as screen shots.
19-year-old Omar Al-Ganas, nephew of the Islamist leader Abu Raad, has, with the help of personal votes, entered the city council of Hässleholm.Gil Troy: Beware of BDS derangement syndrome
The news website Samhällsnytt recently revealed how Al-Ganas has expressed anti-Semitic views and derogatory comments towards women, has strong Islamic views, wants to kill the leaders of the US and Israel and has questionable loyalties to the country in which he lives.
And as a result, he has now been asked by his own party (Social Democrats) to resign.
Some facts about Omar Al-Ganas:
He is the nephew of the infamous Abu Raad, who is identified as the leader of Islam in Sweden.
Raad is Imam in a mosque in Gävle and celebrated ISIS’ conquest of northern Iraq on Facebook, and has also tried to raise money for terrorists.
You don’t shout “Fire” in a crowded theater, and Jewish patriots shouldn’t blindly bash Bibi-Trump to liberals, unless they wish to further rabble-rouse against Israel. Just as right-wing demagogues must take responsibility when they demonize minorities and then hooligans lash out, liberals must take responsibility when they exaggerate Israel’s faults and then progressives jump ship.Dexter Van Zile: ‘They’re all Jews!’
The rush one gets from feeling so virtuous by cursing such demons better be worth it, because it comes at a great cost. Fanatics from both camps are ruining one of the greatest Jewish identity building blocks of the modern era – a nonpartisan, non-oppressive, non-demonized Israel. Why poison that well?
I’m not saying don’t criticize Israel’s government – just do it intelligently, with a stiletto, not with the “Mother of all Bombs.” I’m not saying don’t defend Israel’s borders from possible traitors, just do it intelligently, as a sniper, not a flamethrower.
Our punchline- and headline-oriented Twitterverse abhors subtlety, complexity, but democratic politics needs them. I hate boycotters. But, even more, I hate our obsession with BDS and how it makes some of us behave crudely. And I love my liberal American Jewish partners and want to learn from them and with them, but as loving critics, not as hateful, burn-the-house-down radicals.
One of my new brothers in Zionism, Rabbi Sharon Shalom, speaking at our Zionist Salon in the Tel Aviv Sukkah, noted that “in our history, whenever we have let despair upstage hope, we have suffered.” But, this man who came to Israel from Ethiopia alone as a nine-year-old said, “whenever we have let hope upstage despair, we have thrived.” Extremists peddle despair; Zionism has always peddled hope, “Hatikvah.”
Neither the government nor its critics should give up on that strategy – or on us.
Throughout history, stereotypes of Jews as money-hungry and corrupt have stoked anti-Jewish political movements—and often, with deadly consequences.Danish BDS-Supporting Bank Behind Vast Money-Laundering Scheme
This sinister propaganda campaign, I regret to inform you, is being fervently pursued this week at the “Christ at the Checkpoint” conference in Oklahoma City.
The old stereotypes of the wealthy Jew are being dusted off and put in the service of the conference’s political agenda: to turn Christians in Middle America away from supporting the State of Israel.
At the opening session, which is being organized by staffers and members of the United Methodist Church, wealthy American Jews are being portrayed as enemies of the peace and nefarious manipulators of the American people.
And one Jew, in particular, is the favorite target of their unhinged conspiracy theories and antisemitic hatred: Sheldon Adelson, a man whose generous philanthropy in medical research and opioid addiction has assisted countless human beings.
His name came up more than once during a talk led by Alex Awad, a Palestinian Christian who is now a U.S. citizen. According to Awad, the United States has been unable to bring peace to the Middle East because, allegedly, wealthy Jews such as Adelson control American foreign policy.
Awad, a former missionary with the United Methodist Church, declared that the power and influence of the “Israeli lobby” is manifested in the Trump administration’s decision to allow “Israel and the Israeli lobby in the U.S. and pro-Israeli billionaires to run U.S. policy in the Middle East.”
Denmark’s largest bank, Danske Bank, has admitted that its Estonian banking subsidiary has been involved in what is probably the largest money-laundering scandal in Europe’s history. In recent years, this deeply corrupt bank has boycotted several Israeli companies on “ethical grounds.” Israel should use the Danske Bank case as a key example of fraudulent anti-Israeli moralists. Revelations from further investigations into the bank’s misbehavior will likely result in many additional disclosures in years to come.Jewish groups at UC Davis say hate incidents are ‘swept under the rug’
Danske Bank’s criminal activity was conducted by its subsidiary in Estonia between 2007 and 2015. The amount of money transferred abroad is a staggering $234 billion. The bank estimates that a significant proportion of these payments was suspect.
Fifteen thousand accounts were reviewed. Of these, 6,200 had the most risk factors. The customers involved were primarily Russians and other Eastern Europeans non-resident in Estonia.
To carry out this scheme, Danske Bank’s subsidiary needed the help of major foreign banking correspondents. It has not yet been ascertained to what extent those banks were aware of what was going on. Yet, in 2013, JP Morgan terminated its correspondent banking relationship with the Estonian bank over doubts about its activities. It was replaced by Bank of America. Danske Bank also continued to make US dollar wire transfers on behalf of the Estonian bank.
Jewish groups at the University of California, Davis, said in a letter to the school’s chancellor that hate incidents are “continuously being swept under the rug.”Report: Congress Investigates $200,000 Given to Terrorist-Designated Group by US
The letter came a week after anti-Semitic fliers were posted on campus. The fliers, blaming Jews for spreading sexual assault allegations against newly sworn-in Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, have been posted on several campuses and at other venues across the country.
“While the fliers were taken down as soon as they were reported, the campus’ response to this incident is insufficient and does not offer specific support for Jewish students,” more than a dozen Jewish groups said in the letter.
The groups called on Chancellor Gary May to adjust the statement he sent out in the wake of the incident and to “offer more support for the Jewish community.” May condemned the fliers, said they do “not represent who we are as a community” and violate the campus posting policy.
Their letter, which noted at least three recent anti-Semitic incidents on campus, also directed students in need of support to the Student Health and Counseling Services and the Harassment and Discrimination and Prevention Program.
Congress is investigating a 2014 decision by the Obama administration to give $200,000 to the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), which the United States designated as a terrorist group in 2004 because it provided funding to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.New York University Students to Bring Forward BDS Resolution
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform initiated the investigation after a report earlier this year by the Middle East Forum, a right-wing think tank.
The project was suspended temporarily in November 2014 after the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which administers US foreign assistance, and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) were alerted to ISRA’s terror links.
But after verifying the Islamic Relief Agency’s status as a sanctioned entity, the Middle East Forum discovered that OFAC nonetheless authorized a $125,000 transfer to ISRA in May 2015 after “close collaboration and consultations with the Department of State.” Afterwards, USAID official Charles Wanjue exclaimed, “Good news and a great relief, really!”
Many of these organizations are deemed charitable, though money can be funneled elsewhere.
Students at New York University (NYU) plan to promote a resolution supportive of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel in November, drawing opposition from some Zionist campus leaders.France Halts Discriminatory Labeling Requirement In the Case of Israel Winemaker
The resolution will be brought forward on November 1 by three students senators including Rose Asaf, a co-founder of Jewish Voice for Peace at NYU, the student-run Washington Square News reported. It will be voted on through a secret ballot on December 6, after six speakers from each opposing side of the debate will be given two minutes to speak, and only NYU students will be allowed to attend.
Asaf said that the resolution will be “explicitly posed” as part of the BDS campaign, whose co-founder and other senior advocates have urged the creation of a Palestinian state in place of Israel. “A lot of the times at other universities, they’ll try to separate it from the BDS movement and say this is just divestment,” she noted. “We are explicitly saying that this is a result of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.”
Leaders with the student clubs TorchPAC and Realize Israel — both of which were subject to a boycott pledge by more than 50 BDS-supporting student clubs at NYU in April — expressed their concerns over the latest BDS initiative on campus to Washington Square News.
“BDS infantilizes Palestinians, removing any responsibility or agency from their end,” said Gabe Hoffman, treasurer of Realize Israel, who noted that Israel has previously tried to negotiate peace with the Palestinians. “It hinders the prospects of a mutually agreed-upon peaceful solution and ultimately hurts the wrong people, namely, the near 50,000 Palestinians with jobs at risk if their firms are sanctioned.”
France suspended a discriminatory requirement earlier this month over labeling Israeli products made in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, as it awaits a ruling by the European Court of Justice.
The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit human-rights legal think tank, brought the lawsuit against the French Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance in 2017 on behalf of the Israeli winemaker Psagot Winery LTD, whose European distributors must adhere to the labeling protocol.
“We are glad the French government will not be applying its discriminatory and unlawful policies, pending the outcome of the case,” said Lawfare Project executive director Brooke Goldstein. “However, we should not have reached this point in the first place, where an Israeli company must rely on European courts to enforce basic economic rights.
“The entire issue could easily have been rendered moot had the French government announced that the policy, which clearly contradicts EU and French trade laws, would be suspended indefinitely,” she said.
U.K. Islamic Org. Releases Promotional Video for Upcoming "Islamophobia Awards" Showing Dancing Caricatures of Trump, May, Others @realDonaldTrump @theresa_may @MaajidNawaz @officialmoz @RichardDawkins @SadiqKhan @Imamofpeace @EmmanuelMacron @MrAndyNgo @billmaher @spikedonline pic.twitter.com/LT0oiZLMDS
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) October 17, 2018
MEMRI: Iraqi Shiite Cleric: As Long as Tel Aviv, NY, DC Live in Peace, We'll Have Ruin at the Hand of Jews
Iraqi Shiite cleric Sheikh Muhammad Al-Lami gave an address in which he said that the Jews were involved in "everything that is happening in the world, especially in the Middle East," including car bombs, "religious and ideological deviations," economic ruin, destruction of infrastructure, and Sunni-Shiite hostilities. "As long as Tel Aviv, New York, and Washington live in peace, we will have ruin and destruction," he said, adding: "We are being destroyed and these countries are safe, which means that they are our destroyers. The Jews!" Mentioning the antisemitic hadith about the Prophecy of the Rock and the Tree, Sheikh Al-Lami said that the Jews would "suffer merciless humiliation" at the hand of the Muslim believers. He declared: "Our Lord does not need to strike the arrogant nations with TNT or nuclear bombs, in order to destroy them. All the tyrants met their end by simple means." The address was posted on Sheikh Al-Lami's Youtube channel on October 1, 2018.
Israel gets top marks for innovation, entrepreneurship in WEF report
Israel ranks first in the world for its attitude toward entrepreneurial risk and for the growth of innovative companies, and second, after the US, in venture capital availability, according to the latest Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.Singapore investment giant buys Israeli cybersecurity firm for $250M
The so-called Startup Nation’s R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP is also the highest in the world, and the nation is third, out of 140 countries ranked, in the number of companies that embrace disruptive ideas.
The country’s weakest points in the new report were the incidents of terrorism, putting it at 117 out of 140; the ease of hiring foreign labor, at 125; and imports as a percentage of GDP, in which Israel was ranked 109 globally, the report showed.
For its latest Global Competitiveness Report, the WEF used a new methodology to assess how global economies are faring and are forecast to fare in a world that is going digital and undergoing what has been called the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Overall, Israel ranked 20th out of the 140 countries listed in the latest competitiveness report. In the 2017 report, using old methodology, Israel was ranked 16th globally, but when applying the new methodology to last year’s data, then Israel’s ranking is unchanged, at 20, a spokesman for the WEF explained.
Singapore-based global investment company Temasek and Israeli cybersecurity consulting firm Sygnia announced Tuesday that they have finalized a deal for Temasek to acquire the Israeli startup for some $250 million.SodaStream launches ocean plastic cleanup effort in Honduras
Financial magazine Forbes described the deal as highlighting "the growing significance of cybersecurity to investors around the world, the value placed on top-notch cybersecurity talent, and the continuing rise of Israel as a cybersecurity powerhouse."
Founded in 2015, Tel Aviv-based Sygnia focuses on cybersecurity consulting and response to complex and sophisticated cyberattacks.
The company has developed a reputation for rapid and decisive threat responses, especially among Fortune 100 companies and major global companies in the financial, legal, retail, information technology, media, pharmaceutical, telecommunication, logistics and manufacturing industries, helping them build their cyber resilience.
The deal will allow Sygnia to expand its global reach while maintaining its operational independence. Founder and CEO Shachar Levy and Chairman Nadav Zafrir will remain in their positions, as will co-founders Ariel Smoler and Ami Kor, Sygnia said.
SodaStream, the Israeli maker of the popular home carbonation device, has entered the ocean-cleanup business.American Actress Marilyn Monroe’s Personal Jewish Prayer Book Up for Auction
The company announced Monday the launch of an operation off the coast of Roatán, Honduras to help clean a massive plastic garbage patch in the area.
“We can’t clean up all the plastic waste on the planet, but we each need to do whatever we can,” CEO Daniel Birnbaum said in a company press release.
“More than 8 million tons of plastic goes into the ocean every year. This plastic doesn’t disappear. It breaks up into tiny particles, floats in the ocean, endangers marine life and ends up in our food chain,” Birnbaum said. “The most important thing is to commit ourselves to stop using single-use plastic.”
The campaign is also a way for the company to highlight its products. SodaStream sells home kits to add carbonation and flavor to tap water using multiple-use plastic bottles.
A Jewish prayer book belonging to American actress Marilyn Monroe has been put up for sale by a New York auction house.
Monroe converted to Judaism in 1956, prior to marrying Jewish-American playwright Arthur Miller. The couple divorced just five years later, but Monroe continued even afterwards to maintain to Rabbi Robert Goldburg of Congregation Mishkan Israel in New Haven, Conn., who oversaw her conversion and marriage, that she was Jewish.
The siddur, a cream-colored edition of The Form of Daily Prayers: According to the Custom of the German and Polish Jews was published in 1922 and will be auctioned by J. Greenstein & Co. on Nov. 12 in Cedarhurst in Long Island, N.Y.
The starting bid for the unique item, which includes handwritten notes in pencil—presumably written by Monroe herself—is set at $4,600.
Though the item is extremely rare, it is not one-of-a-kind. A copy of a Union Prayer Book for Jewish Worship made out to Monroe with the name Marilyn Monroe Miller embossed on the cover sold in 1999 for $19,250.
