JCPA: Palestinian Authority Payments to Terrorists in 2018
The detailed Palestinian Authority budget for 2018 that was published recently has new details about the allocations to arrested terrorists and the families of those who died or were wounded in the context of the “struggle against Zionism:”Marc Lamont Hill and the Soviet Union’s ongoing war against Israel
The total PA budget is $5 billion. The amount that supports prisoners is $155 million, out of which $147 million are spent on transfers to the prisoners. These include salaries to 5,000 prisoners, paying Israeli fines for 1,200 prisoners, grants to 1,500 prisoners upon their discharge, grants for 1,200 unemployed released prisoners, delayed payments to 1,000 prisoners, salaries for 5,500 released prisoners, unspecified amounts to released prisoners who spent more than 10 years in jail, canteen expenditures for 6,000 prisoners, and clothing allocations for 5,000 prisoners.
The PA budget for supporting the families of “martyrs” and the wounded is $185 million. This sum is used to make sure that 24,000 families of “martyrs” and wounded who reside inside the “homeland” get a monthly allowance, 13,500 such families who reside outside the “homeland” get a monthly allowance, 375 families get special monetary assistance, 28,000 families get health insurance, and monthly allowances are paid to the victims of the 2014 conflict in Gaza. On top of all this, the budget is used to finance a variety of benefits to the family members (such as going on pilgrimages and exemptions from education tuition).
On November 28, 2018, Temple University professor and then-CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill advocated the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel in his prepared remarks before the United Nations. The pundit’s decision to use a chant employed by genocidal terrorist groups like Hamas received widespread media coverage and likely prompted CNN to sever ties. It also received widespread applause from Hill’s audience: the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP).A captive in Ramallah
A Cold War relic, CEIRPP continues the Soviet Union’s war against Jewish self-determination. The committee remains at the forefront of international efforts to delegitimize and attack the Jewish state.
According to Gil Kapen, a special adviser to the American Jewish International Relations Institute (AJIRI), CEIRPP and its sister UN organization, the Division for Palestinian Rights, are used for “organizing conferences and disseminating information condemning Israel, and otherwise spreading one-sided propaganda consistent with the most extreme Palestinian positions.” Indeed, it was founded for that express purpose.
CEIRPP was established on November 10, 1975 after the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3376, which was backed by the Soviet Union and co-sponsored by its satellite state, East Germany. That same day, both communist powers successfully advocated for Resolution 3375, which gave Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) observer status at the UN a mere two years after Arafat approved the murder of the US ambassador to Sudan, Cleo A. Noel, Jr. in March 1973.
Most infamously, the UN also passed the Soviet-inspired Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism – Jewish self-determination – with “racism and racial discrimination.”
As historian Jeffrey Herf detailed in his 2016 book Undeclared Wars with Israel:
“The resolutions of November 10, 1975, made Israel a pariah state at the UN. They placed the language of “inalienable rights” and the search for a “just and lasting peace” in the service of the PLO’s ongoing terrorist campaign waged against Israel.”
The UN, historian Gil Troy noted, “was building an institutional infrastructure” for an “ideological assault” against the Jewish state’s very right to exist. That assault was being led by the Soviet Union.
A permanent resident of Israel, a Jew with American citizenship, has been held captive in Ramallah by the Palestinian Authority for two months.
Does that sound credible? Could it really happen? It doesn’t seem plausible. But that’s precisely the situation, except for one small detail that shouldn’t make any difference whatsoever: The man in question is an Arab. He is accused of a very serious crime – selling property to Jews. For our neighbors, this is a felony so heinous that it incurs the death penalty.
Imagine an Israeli law prohibiting the sale of property to Arabs. The whole world would be up in arms and we would be ostracized, and rightly so. Shouldn’t the same standards be applied? Now imagine a law forbidding Jews to purchase property in the US, or Britain, or France. How would we react? We’d do whatever it took to get the antisemitic legislation rescinded.
So why aren’t we doing anything about the current situation? The PA lives by the bayonets of the Israeli Army. Otherwise, they’d be reliving what happened to them in Gaza when their loyalists were thrown from rooftops and anyone who managed to get out ran straight for the arms of Israeli soldiers.
When they had to make the choice between their brothers and our troops they chose us, and they knew very well why. So how come we’re tolerating their anti-Jewish law? Mahmoud Abbas made the Palestinian vision very clear: a territory free of Jews.
The man behind bars is Issam Akel. Contrary to law and mutual agreements, this resident of Israel is incarcerated in a Palestinian prison, most likely undergoing torture, and no one is kicking up a fuss. Israel isn’t in an uproar. Instead of doing everything in our power to put an end to this outrage, we’re dragging our feet.
JPost Editorial: Excusing antisemitism
The New York Times is viewed as the gold standard of journalism, and space on their opinion pages is highly coveted. Yet it has repeatedly chosen to give its implicit approval to antisemitism by including defenses of the world’s oldest hatred as a part of “all the news that’s fit to print,” as the motto goes.‘Criticism of Israel not an excuse for antisemitism’ says Theresa May
The latest is an op-ed by progressive columnist Michelle Goldberg. Titled “Anti-Zionism is not the same as Antisemitism,” the article is full of distortion and tendentious framings of facts and events.
The columnist laments the conflation of Jews and Israel and, in a way, she is right about that – Jews living in the US, UK, France or anywhere else should not be targeted because of Israel’s perceived ills, yet they have been many times.
But Goldberg only plays lip service to the confluence between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, ignoring how much those two overlap. On the Right and the Left, being anti-Zionist is the way to be antisemitic in polite society, by treating Israel like the Jew among the nations, and then punting that hatred onto local Jews.
The conspiracy theories about the international Jews have been replaced with Israel – and their emissaries – secretly whispering into world leaders’ ears convincing them to make decisions not serving their own interests.
One glaring example was the recent protest held outside the home of Tunisia’s tourism minister, who happens to be Jewish. They chanted “Zionists out,” apropos of nothing but his Judaism.
Rashida Tlaib, soon to be the first Palestinian member of Congress and someone who Goldberg specifically defends, recently wrote – in response to a tweet about her standing up to supposed pressure from AIPAC – about how she has experience resisting “billionaires... who trampled on working people.” In a later tweet, she wrote that the pro-Israel lobby targeted her for her “mere existence,” implying bigotry on their part.
British Prime Minister Theresa May strongly condemned rising antisemitism in Europe on Monday in a speech to the Conservative Friends of Israel lobbying group, saying that it was a critical component of fighting all racial hatred.US man arrested for plotting synagogue attacks in Toledo, Ohio
Public debate over antisemitism in the UK has intensified in recent months following a bitter dispute between the Jewish community and the Labour Party which has been beset by antisemitism over the last few years and which adopted a truncated form of an internationally recognized definition of antisemitism in the summer.
After several months of growing anger from the Jewish community, Labour backtracked and adopted the full definition, with a caveat, but the party’s new hard-left membership and its vociferous criticism of Israel, not least from party leader Jeremy Corbyn, has left much of British Jewry highly sceptical of Labour.
Picking up on this issue, May declared on Monday that “Criticising the government of Israel is never – and can never, ever be – an excuse for hatred against the Jewish people”.
She also insisted that antisemitism in the UK must be tackled head on and was part of the wider struggle against racial hatred.
“We must root out the scourge of antisemitism here in our own country… You cannot claim to be tackling racism, if you are not tackling antisemitism,” said the prime minister.
FBI says Damon Joseph planned to carry out mass shooting during Shabbat services on behalf of Islamic State, told undercover agent he was inspired by Pittsburgh massacre.
The FBI on Monday announced the arrest of a 21-year-old Ohio man on terrorism charges for allegedly plotting to attack two synagogues in the US city of Toledo, Ohio. He has been charged with one count of attempting to provide material support for the Islamic State terror group.
According to the Department of Justice, Damon M. Joseph was arrested on Friday after purchasing 2 AR-15 rifles and talking of killing many people, including a rabbi.
The affidavit filed in US District Court in Toledo said Joseph was inspired by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting attack in October, which killed 11 Jewish worshipers.
Earlier in December, Joseph told an undercover FBI agent that he was identifying synagogues in the Toldeo area to carry out a mass shooting attack in the name of the Islamic State. He told the undercover agent that Jews were evil, and that the Tree of Life Synagogue victims “got what was coming to them.”
“I admire what the guy did with the shooting actually,” Joseph wrote to the agent in one communication. “I can see myself carrying out this type of operation inshallah. They wouldn’t even expect [an attack] in my area.”
Today marks 70 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yet abusers ruling #Burundi #China #Cuba #Congo #Qatar #SaudiArabia & #Venezuela sit on the UN Human Rights Council. To fight back, this is how we gave a voice to their victims. Full video: https://t.co/MbohTqeOQM pic.twitter.com/Ly4dFU7kLe
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) December 10, 2018
As we today mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the human rights abusers ruling Burundi, China, Cuba, Congo, Qatar, Saudi Arabia & Venezuela sit on the UN Human Rights Council. To fight back, this is how we gave a voice to their victims: pic.twitter.com/GiGG9fvlpj
— UN Watch (@UNWatch) December 10, 2018
Beto O'Rourke, Looking To 2020, Meets With Democrat With Racist And Anti-Semitic History
Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, looking to shore up his presidential aspirations and garner support for his assumed presidential run in 2020, met with someone whose history has been laced with racism and anti-Semitism: Rev. Al Sharpton.Ocasio-Cortez Spox Refuses To Divulge Where She Stands On BDS Movement
The two men met on Friday, as a spokesperson for Sharpton confirmed, asserting, “They spoke and agreed to meet within the next couple of weeks and they had a great conversation,” according to Buzzfeed News.
Before his loss in the Texas senatorial race to Senator Ted Cruz (D-TX), O’Rourke coyly stated that he wasn’t planning to run for elective office in 2020, but less than three weeks after the election, he stated at a townhall that after he finished his term in January 2019, “Amy and I will think about what we can do next to contribute to the best of our ability to this community.” When reporters asked if he was shifting his position about running in 2020, O’Rourke replied, "Yeah, it is … Running for Senate, I was 100% focused on our campaign, winning that race, and then serving the next six years in the United States Senate. That was 100% of our focus. Now that that is no longer possible, you know, we're thinking through a number of things. Amy and I made a decision not to rule anything out."
The Washington Post reported that O’Rourke met with Obama on November 16. Between that meeting and Friday’s meeting with Sharpton, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, a favorite of Obama’s and his staffers, announced he would not seek the 2020 presidential nomination. That left the door open for O’Rourke to approach personages in the Democratic Party loyal to Obama. As Buzzfeed notes, “He’s already had positive signs in that regard — Dan Pfeiffer, a former Obama aide who now cohosts the popular Pod Save America podcast, laid out 'The Case For Beto O’Rourke' at the end of November.”
A spokesperson for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refused to share the incoming congresswoman’s stance on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement when asked on Friday.Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez defends Jewish heritage claim: 'culture isn’t DNA'
The official BDS website describes the movement as one trying to uphold “the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.”
Conversely, many Jewish organizations view the movement through a lens of anti-Semitism. The Anti-Defamation League says that the BDS movement “rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state” and “is the most prominent effort to undermine Israel’s existence.”
The Daily Caller asked Corbin Trent, a spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez, to share her stance on the movement.
Trent responded, “No, sorry.”
The movement has garnered support from two of Ocasio-Cortez’s fellow incoming congresswomen. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the first two Muslim women in Congress, are also the first two members of Congress to publicly support the movement, The Intercept reported.
Last month, Omar’s campaign told Muslim Girl, “Ilhan believes in and supports the BDS movement, and has fought to make sure people’s right to support it isn’t criminalized. She does however, have reservations on the effectiveness of the movement in accomplishing a lasting solution.”
US congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended her claim she descends from Sephardic Jews who fled from the Spanish Inquisition to Puerto Rico, claiming her "culture isn't DNA."PreOccupiedTerritory: Obama Drone Victims Relieved To Be Killed By Liberal Administration (satire)
In a series of Twitter posts on Monday, the Democrat, who was elected last month to represent and district in New York that includes parts of the Bronx and Queens, shed light on her comments from a Sunday party in which she said some of her family members were Sephardi Jews "a very long time ago, generations and generations ago."
"Before everyone jumps one me - yes, culture isn’t DNA," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. "But to be Puerto Rican is to be the descendant of: African Moors + slaves, Taino Indians, Spanish colonizers, Jewish refugees, and likely others. We are all of these things and something else all at once - we are Boricua."
Clarifying her comments, she explained, "Just because one concrete identity may not be how we think of ourselves today, nor how we were raised, it doesn’t mean we cannot or should not honor the ancestors + stories that got us here. I was raised Catholic, & that identity is an amalgam too - especially in Latin America."
Departed souls whose bond with their corporeal selves met a premature end in UAV-fired missile attacks before 2017 expressed a measure of solace today that their violent demise occurred as a result of President Barack Obama’s authorization and not, Heaven help us, that of Donald Trump.French Minister refuses to grant award to Palestinian NGO with terror ties
Victims of collateral damage from drone strikes across the Middle East and Africa confessed in interviews that they can accept their bloody deaths because those deaths came about through the decisions of a Democrat occupying the White House, but they pity those whose lives end under identical circumstances save the identity of the American commander-in-chief of armed forces.
“We’re the fortunate ones,” observed Yhiya, whose wedding in southern Yemen in 2010 ended in tragedy as an American drone fired a missile that killed him, his bride, his parents, his bride’s brother, seventeen guests, and wounded a dozen more. “When Barack Obama was in office, you knew that things were going right, and that all of his decisions represented the most noble aspirations for mankind. It’s no big deal to meet one’s maker at the hand of such a saint. I don’t know how all the drone strike victims since Trump assumed the presidency even deal with it.”
Omar, who burned to death in a vehicle that a drone blew up in 2013 in Afghanistan, voiced similar sentiments. “I welcome my death,” he breezed. “Obama can do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. The man was the embodiment of everything a world leader should be: erudite, wise, principled, moral, you name it. The Nobel Peace Prize he earned even before doing a thing as president basically says it all. My gory, agonizing demise is a small price to pay for the utopia he brought about.”
French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet will not present Al-Haq, a Palestinian group with ties to a terrorist organization, and Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem with the Human Rights Awards of the French Republic, but they will still receive the prize, the French Jewish umbrella group CRIF said on Sunday.B’Tselem slams Israel at French human rights award ceremony
CRIF President Francis Kalifat wrote to Belloubet that these are “two organizations known to call for the boycott of Israel… which is banned by our criminal code,” and for the Justice Ministry to give them this award, “even in the absence of the minister, is insulting justice.
“The position is incomprehensible to us,” Kalifat wrote. “I ask you… not to support the action of those who act in contradiction with our laws.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely also spoke out against the award, calling the choice of Al-Haq and B’Tselem “deplorable” and asking the French government to rethink it.
“B’Tselem is an organization that has repeated biased reports on unreliable sources in order to harm Israel, and Al-Haq is an organization engaged in BDS against Israel and whose members have documented connections to terror organizations, including the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” Hotovely wrote.
In addition, Hotovely said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed opposition to French support for these organizations in a meeting with French President Emanuel Macron.
Israel is in a state of “lies, propaganda and threats,” B’Tselem CEO Hagai El-Ad said in his acceptance speech for the Human Rights Awards of the French Republic in Paris Monday.IsraellyCool: Sprung! Roger Waters Caught Lying About Reason for Tribute Band Cancellation of Israel Tour
“The occupation is organized, continuing state violence that leads to dispossession, killing and oppression,” El-Ad said at the French Justice Ministry. “All of the mechanisms of the state are partners in it: The ministers and the judges, the officers and the planners, the MKs and bureaucrats. Those who lead the resistance to this unjust reality are the human rights organizations, because we completely oppose violence and harm to civilians.”
B’Tselem, which calls itself calls itself “the Israeli information center for human rights in the occupied territories,” shared the award with Al-Haq, a Palestinian organization whose leadership has ties to the terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Al-Haq is a leader in calling for anti-Israel boycotts and in lawfare, petitioning foreign courts against Israel.
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, the organized French Jewish community and Meyer Habib, a French lawmaker representing expats, including those in Israel, spoke out against the award. Habib pointed out that boycotts are illegal in France, and yet the Justice Ministry is giving these organizations an award for supporting something that breaks French law.
French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet withdrew from presenting the award in light of the controversy, but the organizations still received the prize.
Yesterday I posted how Jew hater Roger Waters tried to shame the UK Pink Floyd Experience into cancelling their Israel performances. And it worked, thanks to outright harassment from Waters’ minions.Anti-Semitic flyers found near site of Pittsburgh synagogue massacre
Fresh from this “victory,” Waters is targeting other Pink Floyd tribute bands.
Note how Waters makes it sound like the UK Pink Floyd Experience cancelled because they agree with BDS.
I have heard back from David Power who speaks for the band, I am very happy that they have canceled their shows in Israel, they agree that, in their own words, ”The situation in Israel and Palestine is intolerable”.
But he’s been caught in an outright lie – David Power himself has felt the need to clarify in light of Waters’ comments about his supposed words:
Besides calling out Waters for his outright lie, David Power is confirming that the only reason for cancelling the Israel tour were the abuse and threats he and the band received.
Well done, Waters, for your latest bullying and lying. You achieved a hollow victory indeed.
Authorities are investigating the dissemination over the Hanukkah holiday of anti-Semitic pamphlets in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where a gunman killed 11 people while they prayed at a synagogue in October.Unprecedented EU poll finds 90% of European Jews feel anti-Semitism increasing
Pamphlets were also found in other Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
On Sunday, a spokesman said police and the city department of public safety were "taking this matter very seriously and will follow every investigative avenue."
Police said "such hate-filled material" will not be tolerated in the city by residents, city officials or law enforcement.
Robert Bowers, 46, has been charged with bursting into the synagogue and opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle and three pistols in the midst of Shabbat prayer services as he shouted: "All Jews must die."
Nearly 90 percent of European Jews feel that anti-Semitism has increased in their home countries over the past five years, and almost 30% say they have been harassed at least once in the past year, reveals a major European Union report published on Monday.Jewish groups say EU anti-Semitism poll is ‘final warning,’ urge Europe to act
The poll was carried out in 12 European Union member states, and was the largest ever of its kind worldwide.
Of the more than 16,000 Jews who participated in the online survey, 85% rated anti-Semitism the biggest social or political problem in the country where they live. Thirty-eight percent said they had considered emigrating because they did not feel safe as Jews.
Britain, Germany, and Sweden saw the sharpest increases in those saying anti-Semitism is a “very big” or “fairly big” problem. The highest level recorded was in France at 95%. Denmark saw the lowest level at 56%, while Jews in Hungary suggested that anti-Semitism was becoming less of a problem.
The UK results, experts suggest, may point to a “Corbyn factor” connected to the ongoing row over anti-Semitism in the British Labour party.
“Decades after the Holocaust, shocking and mounting levels of anti-Semitism continue to plague the EU,” said Michael O’Flaherty, director of the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), which published the research. “In many ways,” he suggested, anti-Semitism had become “disturbingly normalized.”
The research is a follow-up to a 2012 survey conducted by the FRA. The 12 EU countries surveyed — Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom — are home to 96% of the EU’s estimated Jewish population. The online survey was conducted from May to June this year.
Jewish groups on Monday urged European leaders to take action after an EU report revealed that nearly 90 percent of European Jews feel that anti-Semitism has increased in their home countries over the past five years, and almost 30% say they have been harassed at least once in the past year.Plaques honoring Rome’s deported Jews reported stolen
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) issued a statement saying that the report should serve as a “final warning” to the continent’s leaders, and that action must be taken.
“Many European Jews are extremely concerned for the future,” said Dr. Moshe Kantor, president of the EJC. “They have lost faith in the authorities, in their neighbors and in their national leaders and this has led not only to a crisis in their relations with them, but are wavering between two extreme actions, emigration and cutting themselves off from their Jewish community.”
The World Jewish Congress laid out a series of steps to be taken to ensure the safety of Jews, and named European political parties and leaders it said bear some of the responsibility for the rise in anti-Semitism.
“Now, more than ever, it is incumbent upon political leaders to set the tone of what is acceptable discourse in Europe,” said World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder in a statement.
“Leaders of parties with anti-Semitic members must expel them immediately without delay,” he said. “Heads of state must show true and moral leadership in not only speaking out against antisemitism, but with action to root out antisemitism wherever it may rear its ugly head.”
Rome’s mayor denounced on Monday the apparent theft of 20 small bronze plaques honoring the members of a Jewish family deported during the Holocaust.Israel Aerospace Industries closes $160m drone deal with Vietnam
The plaques, affixed to cobblestone assembled by German artist Gunter Demnig in front of the Di Consiglio family home in the Monti neighborhood, were apparently taken overnight. A gaping hole was all that remained Monday.
The Di Consiglios were among the Italian families who suffered the most loss during the Holocaust, with over 20 members killed by the Nazis.
Each plaque represented a different Holocaust victim. There were roughly 200 in total prior to the apparent theft.
They are known as the “Stumble Stones” due to their ability to cause passersby to stumble over and be reminded of the atrocities of the Holocaust.
Italian news agency ANSA said the organization responsible for the plaques, “Arte in Memory,” reported the discovery. In July, the same group reported receiving a threatening letter featuring a photo of Adolf Hitler.
In a tweet, Mayor Virginia Raggi condemned the plaques’ theft as unacceptable: “Memory requires respect.”
Over the past few days, Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) has agreed a deal to sell three drones to the Vietnamese government for $160 million. The Heron type 1 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be used by the Vietnamese military for a range of routine missions including maritime patrols.Israeli gas line to Jordan lauded as 'boost for peace'
The Asian media reported that the UAVs will be equipped in such a way that they can take off and land automatically and will be capable of operating in extreme weather conditions.
The Heron UAVs being supplied to the Vietnamese will be able to operate up to a range of about 350 kilometers over periods of up to 50 hours and be able to carry payloads of up to a quarter of a ton - all according to the mission on which it has been sent.
The deal has finally been agreed after a protracted period of uncertainty and delays. According to one of the reports, the deal has been achieved after the personal intervention of Ministry of Defense director general General (res) Udi Adam.
IAI declined to comment on the reports.
Work on the natural gas pipeline running from Israel to Jordan is expected to conclude in the coming weeks, allowing for Israeli gas to be pumped into the Hashemite Kingdom and potentially from there to other countries in the region. Google doodle honors Jewish poet and Nobel winner Nelly Sachs
In late September 2016, Israel and Jordan signed a landmark 15-year, $10 billion natural gas deal.
Work on the pipeline is headed by Israel Natural Gas Lines. It has been lauded as a "boost for peace."
The project is expected to go online in late 2019, coinciding with the expected date that Israel's Leviathan offshore natural gas field, which is slated to feed the pipeline, is also to become fully operational.
The work aims to both double the length of an existing pipeline running inside Israel along its border with Jordan, and add a new line running directly through the two countries' mutual border.
The plans are to extend the existing pipeline by some 32 kilometers (19 miles), essentially doubling it. The new, additional pipeline is expected to stretch across 23 kilometers (14 miles).
"We are in the advanced stages of laying the Israel-Jordan natural gas pipeline, which will enable significant exports of natural gas from Israel to Jordan during the coming year," Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel Hayom on Sunday.
Monday’s Google doodle honors the 127th birthday of Nelly Sachs (1891-1970), the Jewish poet and refugee from Germany who shared the Nobel Prize in literature with the Israeli writer S.Y. Agnon in 1966.Frank Sinatra's kippa sells for almost $10k
Exiled to Sweden during World War II, Sachs was largely obscure in her adopted country. There she wrote lyrical and haunting poems touching on the Holocaust, her fears about the budding state of Israel and what the Jewish Women’s Archive called “the possibility of atrocities committed by humankind and the beauty of humanity.”
Reporting on the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm on December 12, 1966, JTA noted that “Miss Sachs was called up first and, with absolute composure, bowed to the king as she received her award.
“In a brief, gracious speech, she recalled that she was a refugee from Nazi Germany — without mentioning either Hitler or Nazism — and that the ceremony coincided in date with her 75th birthday. Then came Mr. Agnon.”
A hand-crocheted kippa that once belonged to Frank Sinatra was auctioned off by Sotheby's over the weekend for $9,375.
The item was part of an extensive sale of items belonging to the late Barbara and Frank Sinatra; the auction fetched over $9 million overall.
Sotheby's estimated the yarmulke would sell for $200-400, but the final bid was close to 25 times that amount. The auction house did not say who crocheted the kippa or how Frank came to own it. The description of the item, rather, noted that "Sinatra was a lifelong sympathizer with Jewish causes, and was awarded the Hollzer Memorial Award by the Los Angeles Jewish Community in 1949."
Frank Sinatra died in 1998 and his wife of 22 years, Barbara, died last year.
A separate item sold in the auction was the final script for a short 1945 film titled The House I Live In. The film, written by Sinatra and Albert Maltz, was designed to combat antisemitism and promote religious freedom in America. Sinatra plays himself, taking a break from recording an album, and stepping outside to smoke a cigarette. He sees a group of boys chasing a Jewish boy and stops and lectures them about the importance of respect for all religions.
The script, which includes hand annotations by Sinatra, was sold for $4,375.
