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Monday, November 04, 2019

11/04 Links Pt2: Poll: Almost 50% of UK Jews will 'seriously consider' leaving if Corbyn wins elections; Historian: New evidence shows FDR’s bigotry derailed many Holocaust rescue plans; Ray Charles in Israel

From Ian:
Poll: Almost 50% of UK Jews will 'seriously consider' leaving if Corbyn wins elections
Britain's Jewish community so deeply concerned by the prospect of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn winning the next general election that community leaders have launched a campaign to undermine his premiership candidacy.

A recent poll by the Jewish Leadership Council, a British-Jewish advocacy group, found that 47% of British Jews would "seriously consider" emigrating if Corbyn is elected prime minister.

Some 87% of British Jews believed Corbyn to be anti-Semitic, and 90% said they will not vote for Labour, the poll found.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the general elections, set for Dec. 12, following his failure to push the Brexit deal through Parliament. Johnson's promise to have the UK leave the European Union by Oct. 31 had been a key element in the Conservatives' leadership bid, which brought him to power in July.

Corbyn has been repeatedly lambasted for his failure to tackle anti-Semitism within Labour. In 2018, the party received 863 complaints of anti-Semitism but took action in only 101 of those cases. Worse, Labour members who have publicly made statements such as "Jews are the problem" have remained in the party despite complaints against them.


According to the Jewish Chronicle, prominent British Rabbi Jonathan Romain has even taken the unprecedented step of urging congregants to vote against Labour, warning that a Corbyn-led government "would pose a danger to Jewish life as we know it."

"I should stress that the problem is not the Labour Party itself, which has a long record of fighting discrimination and prejudice, but the problem is Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn-led Labour, has at best, let antisemitism arise within its ranks, or at worst, has encouraged it," Romain wrote in a letter to the 823 families who are members of his Berkshire shul.

"This has never happened under any previous Labour leader … so the finger of responsibility really does seem to point to Jeremy Corbyn. I am therefore suggesting we should each put aside all other considerations and vote for whichever party is most likely to defeat Labour in whatever constituency we are in – even if we would never normally vote for that party."

Israel Advocacy Movement: Why vote Labour?
In the upcoming election, a vote for Labour is a vote for:
☠️ Terrorism supporters
🇻🇪 An economy like Venezuela
🚫 Racism
A vote for Labour is a vote for insanity… watch the election video Labour don't want you to see.


Jewish Caller Tells Maajid Nawaz He Would Emigrate If Corbyn Elected
A Jewish caller told Maajid Nawaz that he would close his business and leave the UK if Jeremy Corbyn were to become Prime Minister because of anti-Semitism.

David, from Hendon, said: "I will leave the country as soon as Corbyn comes in, God forbid that he should.

"I will not stay in a country where anti-Semitism is now accepted because I think, brilliantly, he and his PR people just didn't answer really, just deflected old accusations.

Now people are fed up with hearing the word so it's almost as if it's accepted and whether that's the case or people are actually anti-Semitic in this country... I hope not but I'm beginning to have my doubts."

He also explained that he would shut down his business of 53 people.

He said: "I will leave, I will close down all of my businesses which I can. I've been nervous of this, I'm in the position where I'll be able to close them down.

"These people won't be employed anymore and that's fine. I'm looking after myself and I'm sure people, some of your viewers or listeners will be saying 'good riddance, let's get rid of the guy'.

But there are hundreds of people like me, and not all of them are Jewish, there are hundreds of wealthy people who have built up businesses who know that in the end Mr. Corbyn will take it all away from us because he doesn't appreciate people who work hard."




Historian: New evidence shows FDR’s bigotry derailed many Holocaust rescue plans
Not only was US president Franklin Roosevelt perfunctory about rescuing Jews from the Nazis, but he obstructed rescue opportunities that would have cost him little or nothing, according to Holocaust historian Rafael Medoff.

FDR’s role in preventing the rescue of European Jewry is detailed in a new book called, “The Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust.”

Published in September, Medoff’s book includes new archival materials about the relationship between Roosevelt and Rabbi Stephen Wise, who the author sees as a sycophantic Jewish leader used by Roosevelt to “keep the Jews quiet.”

Wrote Medoff, “Franklin Roosevelt took advantage of Wise’s adoration of his policies and leadership to manipulate Wise through flattery and intermittent access to the White House.” In return for visits to the White House and Roosevelt calling him by his first name, Wise undermined Jewish activists who demanded the administration let more Jewish refugees into the US.

According to Medoff, Roosevelt’s policies toward European Jews were motivated by sentiments similar to those that spurred him to intern 120,000 Japanese Americans in detention camps as potential spies.

“Roosevelt used almost identical language in recommending that the Jews and the Japanese be forcibly ‘spread thin’ around the country,” Medoff told The Times of Israel. “I was struck by the similarity between the language FDR used regarding the Japanese, and that which he used in private concerning Jews — that they can’t be trusted, they won’t ever become fully loyal Americans, they’ll try to dominate wherever they go.”
Gil Troy: Mark Twain’s ‘Innocents Abroad’ explains our Israel obsession
Twain offered his pragmatic American explanation for Palestine’s desolation: “Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition – it is dream-land.” Twain feared that Palestine induced so much stargazing no one ever rolled up their sleeves to produce anything there.

Fortunately, the Zionist movement was starting to tap into old-new Jewish dreams to motivate hardy, hardscrabble, hardworking pioneers – much as the American dream drove Twain’s fellow Americans. This pre-Zionist book offers a core Zionist message. The Palestine Twain saw highlights the modern miracles Zionism created that we take for granted.

STILL, IF dreams can motivate or paralyze, mythmaking can inspire – or disappoint. Sarna has long shown how Palestine as dreamland boosted modern Israel in American and Jewish eyes. Many Americans, especially American Jews, echo the pilgrims’ naivete. They romanticize Israel, falling in love with what Sarna calls a “mythical Israel,” more indicative of “American Jewish ideals” than “Israeli realities.” The Zionist dream, American-style, long celebrated an Israel that was even more progressive than America – defined by kibbutz workers, not Wall Street investors; built by new brawny Jews, not traditionally brainy Jews.

Beware: too much mythmaking about any country – especially the world’s only Jewish state trying to survive in a Middle East hostile to Jews and democracies – is risky. As with any romance, some idealization during courtship greases the wheels of love. And Israel’s “dreamland” still dazzles most Americans. But, today, with Israel in middle age, the toxicity of faded romance often triggers an overly harsh counterreaction. Somehow, many of Israel’s jilted leftist lovers still love America while hating Donald Trump. Yet when they detest an Israeli policy or prime minister, they give up on Israel and Zionism.

Mark Twain’s memories of being a Missouri non-Yankee in King Solomon’s court helps explain our modern obsession with Israel, too. Twain emphasizes how foundational Palestine is to the West. “Crowded with historical interest,” filled with “elegant fragments,” it still dominates our collective imaginations.

But heed Twain’s warning. Those who believe Israel can do no right – along with those who believe Israel can do no wrong – are often telling us more about the “verdicts they brought with them” rather than their fair assessments of this rich, complex, modern democracy.

Clearly, we have some Mark Twain-like “unlearning” to do, especially about Israel.
Revisionist Author Tries to Distort the Record of David Ben-Gurion
Tom Segev’s well-written biography of Israel’s first prime minister, A State At Any Cost: The Life of David Ben-Gurion, is undercut by the author’s biases and penchant for narrative.

It would be hard to imagine Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publishing an op-ed in The New York Times on Buddhism. But back in April 1962, the first Israeli premier, David Ben-Gurion, did precisely that — but only after spending weeks studying with religious scholars as a personal guest of the prime minister of Burma, today’s Myanmar. Ben-Gurion even insisted, much to the consternation of his teachers, “that he had discovered a self-contradiction in the Buddha’s doctrine that no one else had ever noticed.” It turned out that he was wrong; it was a translation error.

As Segev makes clear, Israel’s founding father was both exceptional and eccentric. And nearly five decades after his passing, Ben-Gurion remains iconic, with a legacy and career that are arguably unmatched in the small nation’s modern history.

As his private secretary, Yitzhak Navon, once observed, “Without Ben-Gurion, the State of Israel would not be in existence — and this I can say about nobody.” Indeed, long before he was making history, Ben-Gurion was its avid student.

As Segev notes: “He saw himself, and was seen by others, as an incarnation of history.” To a great extent, this was the result of the tremendous willpower that he displayed throughout his life.
New Book Tells a Holocaust Family Mystery
I just finished reading an extraordinary new book, House on Endless Waters by author Emuna Elon.

From start to finish, I found it to be well-written, touching, and chock-full of character development; there were so many stories I could relate to.

The book is a family mystery ripe with great plot twists. It explores one man’s quest — a renowned Israeli author — to visit his birthplace in Amsterdam, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. And during a visit to that city’s Jewish museum, he sees a picture of his mother, pre-war, holding a child he doesn’t recognize. The book explores his adventures through Amsterdam — past, present, and future — replete with dreams, visions, and more, all in beautifully written prose.

Throughout the book, I had memories of growing up in a home where my grandparents were Holocaust survivors, and my mom (z”l) spent so much time researching, reading, and studying about the history of our many family members who were murdered by the Nazis. She attended conferences, discovered obscure files, and spent days at Yad Vashem. In the last few months of her life, my mother learned that her father, Morris Waga, had been married with a family before he married my grandmother. He lost that wife and a three-year old daughter in the camps to the Nazis. Yet, throughout his entire life, he never told my mother or her younger brother.

The book discusses underground networks that hid Jewish children during the war, and the burdens faced by those who survived. The scars of the Holocaust haunt families and people for generations.
Jonathan Tobin: Can Joe Biden save the day for pro-Israel Democrats?
The problem here for pro-Israel Democrats is that, out of necessity, they’ve hitched the fate of their cause to what right now looks like a fading star. Biden, who hasn’t won a competitive race on his own (being Barack Obama’s running mate doesn’t count) since Richard Nixon was president, has so far been a disappointment to his backers. With a focus on the effort to impeach Trump dominating the headlines this winter, it may also remind voters of his son’s questionable behavior further dragging him down.

Nor, it should be added, is Biden coming to the issue with entirely clean hands. He was part of Obama’s eight-year-long pressure campaign against the Israeli government, as well as an ardent supporter of the disastrous 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which he still defends.

Biden may be instinctively supportive of the Jewish state in ways that eclipse those of Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg; however, the tenor of his dialogue with Israel has always been that of an American who thinks he knows the Middle East better than Israelis. Biden received a devastating – and completely deserved – tongue-lashing from former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at a Senate hearing in June 1982. In response to Biden’s threats of aid cuts that were hardly different from the statements of the primary opponents he now considers “outrageous,” Begin slapped him down by telling him that he was “not a Jew with trembling knees,” and that Israel would defend its principles, “and, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”

In a competition with far more extreme critics of Israel than he ever was, Biden is the best that pro-Israel Democrats, who once dominated their party yet now seem unable to muster sufficient support for censoring or shunning anti-Semites like Omar and Tlaib, can muster. It is on his aging and uncertain shoulders that the fate of the Democrats as a pro-Israel party rests. That’s a prospect that should scare friends of the Jewish state, no matter which party they support.
Michael Lumish: Are Arabs indigenous to Judea?
Of course, Arabs are not indigenous to Judea / Israel. Arabs are conquerers indigenous to the Arabian peninsula. If one cares about "the conflict" -- or what I call The Long Arab / Muslim War against the Jews of the Middle East -- then one must recognize the Jews as indigenous and the Arabs and Muslims as imperialists and colonialists.

And, yet, the progressive-left and the Democratic Party honestly believe that the Jewish defenders of Jewish children and Jewish land are the aggressors. They honestly believe that Arabs have every right to kill Jews as a matter of "resistance." It is an intelligent rhetorical strategy on par with the propaganda skill of the National Socialists.

The brilliance behind Arab and Muslim imperialism is that they actually managed to convince the arrogant and ignorant Euros that they are the indigenous population in the lands that they conquered.
Corbyn, a cause for concern
Meanwhile, Johnson's main rival, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, also isn't assured of restoring his party to power for the first time since 2010. Corbyn's ideological extremism is attractive to certain strata of British society but is also a deterrent to others. Some polls find Corbyn to be the "least popular Opposition leader of the past 45 years." Even if he doesn't win, it's still theoretically possible for him to establish a "resistance coalition" against Johnson and Brexit, which would include the Liberal Democrats and Scottish separatists who oppose leaving the EU.

Even if Labour is weakened in the upcoming election, in such a manner that Corbyn is forced to resign, he will have left behind a party that is fundamentally different than the one he inherited four years ago. Labour's far-left faction has effectively consummated its takeover of Britain's main Opposition party, essentially ridding it of all internal dissent. Under the guise of its anti-Israel and anti-Zionist worldview, Labour has normalized anti-Semitism as part of the British political landscape. Even if Corbyn goes, the devastation he leaves in his wake will be absolute.

All efforts by the country's Jewish community and Labour's own Jewish MPs to foster dialogue with Corbyn's circle about banishing anti-Semitic activists within its ranks have floundered amid their refusal to recognize the importance of the matter. There have been cosmetic initiatives, mostly for public relations purposes, but little else. Labour under Corbyn's leadership has legitimized anti-Semitism and shown Jews that the party that first welcomed them to Great Britain – no longer cares for them.

With a sense of humor that under the current circumstances has taken a darker turn, British Jews have altered Labour's slogan from "For the many, not for the few," to "For the many, not for the Jew." If Labour rises to power, this joke could have serious implications for all of Britain.




Also in October: A selection of other antisemitic Incidents that we did not cover
A swastika was spray-painted on a sign near a Jewish school in Gateshead. The graffiti appeared on the corner of High West Street and Gladstone Terrace on 7th October.

A swastika and the words “Lewis is a Jew” were carved into the glass panel of a bus stop in East Leeds. Anyone with information should contact West Yorkshire Police on 101 referencing log number 243.

On Shabbat, 19th October at the Clapton Common and Oldhill Street junction in Stamford Hill, three males accosted Orthodox Jews walking home from synagogue with antisemitic slurs including “Heil Hitler”.
Alison Chabloz fails to overturn conviction over Holocaust denial at High Court, leaving no further avenue of appeal
Moments ago, notorious antisemite and Holocaust denier Alison Chabloz has had her application for a judicial review denied by the High Court following her landmark conviction on three charges of sending grossly offensive communications via a public communications network.

Ms Chabloz had sought to overturn her conviction on technicalities relating to the meaning of what constituted sending communications online, but the High Court denied her appeal and upheld the earlier judgment. There was confusion over the way that the case had proceeded to court as Ms Chabloz’s case was brought before judges by her barrister, Adrian Davies, who maintains his record of losing cases for neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

Ms Chabloz had sought to overturn her conviction on technicalities relating to the case began as a private prosecution by Campaign Against Antisemitism, which was then continued by the Crown Prosecution Service. The charges related to three self-penned songs in which Ms Chabloz denounced a supposed Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world and attacked the Holocaust as a fraud perpetrated by Jews for financial gain.

The conviction set a new precedent in British law, effectively delivering a landmark precedent verdict on incitement on social media and on whether the law considers Holocaust denial to be “grossly offensive” and therefore illegal when used as a means by which to hound Jews.
Boston University set to hire anti-Israel professor
Sarah Ihmoud, a postdoctoral associate at Boston University, is currently under consideration for a teaching position at the university, Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) reported.

According to APT, the university has not yet made an offer to Ihmoud, but the offer is "imminent."

Education Without Indoctrination (EWI) called for action to prevent Boston University from becoming "a platform for Jew-hate."

Ihmoud, co-author of Sexual Violence, Women’s Bodies, and Israeli Settler Colonialism, presented the paper to BU. In it, she claims that "rape and killing of Palestinian women was a central aspect of Israeli troops' systematic massacres and evictions during the destruction of Palestinian villages in 1948" and describes Nazi-like actions, including the shooting of pregnant women and the murder of children.

The paper also claims that that both brutality and sexual violence against Palestinian Authority women is an ongoing tactic of the IDF.
Major Jewish Groups Applaud Twitter for ‘Belated’ Shut Down of Hamas, Hezbollah Accounts
Major Jewish groups applauded the micro-blogging website Twitter on Sunday for suspending a series of accounts affiliated with the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

“Thank you @Twitter for suspending the accounts of Hamas and Hezbollah,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, tweeted.

Referring to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Greenblatt added, “US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations do not belong on the platform. Let’s hope all platforms follow @jack’s lead.”

The American Jewish Committee also weighed in, pointing out that while Twitter has accepted that there is no difference between the “military” and political wings of terrorist groups, the European Union continues to separate the two.


The Simon Wiesenthal Center responded by tweeting, “Belated but welcome anti-terrorist moves by @Twitter — hope others will follow.”
BBC ignores Twitter’s terror groups suspensions
To date, those searching for coverage of that story under the BBC News website’s ‘social media’ and ‘Twitter’ tags will find nothing.

Perhaps the BBC is having difficulty working out how to square that quote from Twitter with its own euphemistic portrayals of Hamas as a ‘militant Islamist group’ and Hizballah as a ‘political, military and social organisation’.
Indy egregiously misleads on Gaza power shortages
A Nov. 3rd article in the Independent on the use of solar power in Gaza grossly misled readers as to the extent and origin of the strip’s electricity shortages.

The article, “Meet the Gazan woman turning rubble into building blocks and sunlight into power”, by their deputy international editor Gemma Fox, begins thusly:

For Samar, Gaza’s crippling blackouts used to mean a daily, panicked rush to take her son to the nearest hospital so that his lungs wouldn’t fail.

He suffers from a lung disease that has left him dependent on a machine to breathe. But the machine depends on electricity – something in critically short supply in Gaza.

Samar’s story is far from unique, with the enclave’s two million residents forced to try to survive on roughly three hours of electricity since Israel imposed a blockade in 2016.

Hospitals and other buildings rely on generators to keep the power on during the cuts, but they are expensive, and until recently, a luxury that Samar was unable to afford.

First, Israel imposed their blockades of Gaza, due to Hamas’s takeover of the strip, in 2007, not 2016.

Also, it was both Egypt and Israel who imposed a blockade. In Israel’s case, the only items that have generally been restricted are military related (or dual-use) goods.

Additionally, the Indy gets their figures on the daily availability of electricity in Gaza wildly wrong. Palestinians in the strip get around twelve hours a day, not three, as a detailed report and graph by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) makes clear.
BBC WS radio amplifies claim that a country called Palestine “existed”
Despite the claims from Hills and Lefrak, as we noted when BBC World Service radio previously promoted the museum and its founder back in June, it is essentially the continuation of a project that is very much political – even if Lefrak fails to identify it as such.

Lefrak: “Museum founder Bshara Nassar says his goal is to create a space that’s more personal than political.”
Nassar: “We want to really transform the story and put Palestinians in the light that we’re human beings, right? We’re artists, we’re entrepreneurs, we’re in politics and we contributing a lot to the US as immigrants as well.”
Lefrak: “Nassar immigrated to the US from the West Bank in 2011. When he came to Washington he saw a city full of museums but he didn’t see one that reflected him.”
Nassar: “Really I could not see a place where the Palestinian story can be told.”
Lefrak: “So he decided to open a travelling exhibition that would eventually become the museum. One of the objects in the collection is a 1946 passport for the Palestine Mandate. It was rendered useless the following year after the United Nations voted to establish the State of Israel. Curator Nada Odeh wants visitors to understand that history.”

That passport was of course in fact “rendered useless” in May 1948 when the British terminated their administration of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – the purpose of which was to create a Jewish national home. In 1947 the UNGA passed a resolution (181) recommending that the area then still under British administration should be partitioned between Jewish and Arab states – a recommendation accepted by the Jews but rejected out of hand by the Arabs and hence never implemented. BBC world Service listeners heard nothing of that history – or the Arab attacks which followed that UN vote – but they did hear the ‘non-political’ museum’s Syrian-born head curator promote the falsehood that a country “called Palestine” used to exist.


German Cardinal: Antisemitism is an attack on us all
A prominent German cardinal of the Catholic Church has pledged that Jews and Christians will stand together in the fight against rising antisemitism in the country.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference and serves as the archbishop of Munich and Freising, said on Sunday night that “Christians and Jews will never separate again,” in the face of new antisemitism.

He made the comments during a panel discussion on antisemitism at the Catholic Academy in Berlin hosted by the German Bishops’ Conference and the Orthodox Rabbinical Conference of Germany.

Among prominent figures who attended were Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission coordinator on combating antisemitism; Armin Laschet, prime minister of North Rhine-Westphalia; and Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

A statement released by the German Bishops’ Conference quoted Marx as calling for stronger social commitment and better cohesion in society “in the face of resurgent antisemitism in Germany and Europe.”

He stressed that he was “very worried” about the direction society is heading because there are “more and more blogs and ideologies from people that cannot be taught, who indulge in conspiracy theories and soon unite as a sounding board for... slogans of antisemitism.”
Outrage in Germany over neo-Nazis’ political ‘kill list’
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government on Monday strongly condemned death threats against two leading Green party politicians by a neo-Nazi group, as concern mounts over a rise in right-wing extremism.

Greens lawmaker Cem Ozdemir, who has Turkish roots, revealed at the weekend that police were investigating an email he had received from a neo-Nazi group saying he was at the top of their kill list.

“We are currently planning how and when to execute you. At the next rally? Or will we get you outside your home?” the email read, according to the Funke newspaper group.

Fellow Greens MP Claudia Roth received a message saying she was second in line to be killed.

Both emails were sent on October 27 and signed with “Nuclear Weapons Division Germany” (AWD), apparently a German offshoot of a notorious US-based neo-Nazi group.

“The German government clearly condemns any kind of threats or violence against politicians,” Merkel’s spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer told reporters.

“We cannot and will not accept these attacks on our free democratic system,” she said, vowing to use the full force of the law against the perpetrators.
White supremacist charged with planning to blow up Colorado synagogue
US authorities have arrested a known white supremacist on suspicion that he planned to blow up a synagogue in Colorado, local media reported Monday.

The suspect, named as Richard Holzer, 27, reportedly met an undercover FBI agent on Friday at a motel with explosives that he allegedly intended to use to attack Temple Emanuel in the city of Pueblo.

Holzer told an undercover FBI agent that he had previously been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and had become a skinhead, according to the Denver Post.

Holzer said he was preparing a “holy war” and claimed to have poisoned the water at the synagogue with arsenic and was planning to do so again, The Denver Post reported, citing an affidavit filed on Saturday at the US District Court in Colorado.

According to the affidavit, when asked what if people were in the building when the bomb exploded, “Holzer stated that he did not think anyone would be there, but that if they were, Holzer would not care because they would be Jews.”
Men dressed as Jews hand out Holocaust denial fliers at Colorado mall
A group of men wearing large white yarmulkes and fringed prayer shawls handed out fliers promoting Holocaust denial and hung up cards bearing anti-Semitic canards on a pedestrian mall in Boulder, Colorado.

The fliers handed out at Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall by the men who appeared to be posing as Jews claimed the Holocaust was “impossible.”

The men also hung notes on index cards around the mall that claimed “Academia is dominated by Marxist Jews,” Jews run the porn industry,” and “Jews ran the Atlantic slave trade,” the Daily Camera newspaper reported.

The men livestreamed their actions, according to the report.

As of Sunday morning, no reports were filed with police about the fliers, Boulder police told the newspaper.


City of Poway, CA, set to rename street after Chabad shooting victim
The city council in Poway, Calif., will consider a proposal on Nov. 5 to change the name of a short street in memory of Lori Lynn Gilbert-Kaye, the only fatality in the shooting earlier this year at Chabad of Poway.

Under the proposal, Eva Drive would become Lori Lynn Lane. It is located near where the 60-year-old congregant lived with her husband, Dr. Howard Kaye, about a mile from the synagogue.

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus said that people associated with Chabad approached the city to propose the street-name change.

“They did all the groundwork, and our team got the obstacles out of the way,” he said. “It should have unanimous and enthusiastic support.”

Three people, including senior Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, were wounded on April 27 when lone gunman John Earnest shot at worshippers during Shabbat-morning services.

Earnest has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges, including 113 federal hate crime-related counts.
Karish natural gas field off Israel’s shore found to be much bigger than thought
Energean Oil and Gas plc, a Greek gas producer focused on the Mediterranean, said Monday that its appraisal of the Karish North discovery offshore Israel has revealed 0.9 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of recoverable natural gas resources plus 34 million barrels of light oil or condensate.

The appraisal “significantly” increases the resource volumes discovered by Energean at the Karish and Tanin leases off Israel’s shore, the statement said.

The firm had already discovered 2.4 tcf of natural gas at the Karish and Tanin fields, along with 33 million barrels of light oil. Energean has already signed accords to sell 4.7 billion cubic meters a year of the fuel to Israeli customers.

Light crude oil is a liquid petroleum that has a low density and low viscosity than heavy crude oil. Natural gas condensate is a mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present in the raw natural gas produced at gas fields.

Israel, a nation traditionally starved of natural resources, believes the discovery of natural gas reserved off its shores in the Mediterranean will lead it to energy independence and make it an exporter of gas. The Karish and Tanin natural gas fields sit alongside the larger Tamar and Leviathan deposits in Israel’s economic waters in the Mediterranean.
Israel-Egypt gas pipeline deal expected in coming days
A deal that would transfer control of a natural gas pipeline between Israel and Egypt is expected to be closed in the next few days, the companies said on Sunday.

Texas-based Noble Energy (NBL.N), Israel’s Delek Drilling (DEDRp.TA) and Egyptian East Gas Co have partnered in a venture called EMED, which last year agreed to buy a 39% stake in the subsea EMG pipeline for $518 million that will carry Israeli gas exports to Egypt.

In a regulatory filing in Tel Aviv, Delek said the shares have already been transferred to the buyers while the funds are currently being held in a trust. It noted that no closing conditions remained.

“Upon the transfer of the full amount of the consideration to the sellers, which is expected to be performed in the coming days, the EMG transaction will be closed in practice,” Delek said.

Partners in Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar offshore gas fields had agreed to sell $15 billion worth of gas to a customer in Egypt — Dolphinus Holdings — but last month the deal was amended to boost supply by 34% to about 85 billion cubic meters, or an estimated $20 billion.
Elbit Systems Lands 5-Year, $50 Million Portuguese Defense Ministry Contract
Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems announced over the weekend that it has been awarded a $50 million contract to supply the Portuguese Air Force with a complete electronic warfare suite and customer logistics support for the new KC-390 multi-mission aircraft. The contract is to be completed over a five-year period.

Under the contract, Elbit will supply the Portuguese Air Force’s KC-390s with Radar and Laser Warning Systems, an IR Missile Warning System, Countermeasures Dispensing System, a Directional IR Countermeasures system and Active ECM (AECM) POD system.

“The Portuguese Air Force is a long-standing strategic partner of Elbit Systems and we are proud of this contract award to provide enhanced survivability for their new fleet of KC-390 aircraft,” said Edgar Maimon, executive vice president and general manager of Elbit Systems’ Electronic Warfare and Signals Intelligence Unit.

Last week, Elbit announced that it had been selected by the Swiss Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport to provide the Swiss Armed Forces with an army-wide tactical Software Defined Radio (SDR) solution under the Telecommunications Armed Forces (TK A) program.
Ray Charles in Israel
“I had always heard that I was popular in Israel, but I didn’t get over there until the early seventies,” the soul genius Ray Charles recalled. “Some people asked me to do a documentary. I liked the idea. I’d never done anything like that before. The film people knew I wasn’t a scholar or a theologian, but they had heard that I had a decent working knowledge of the Bible. They had also heard that the Israelis liked me, and they hoped the two things would blend.”

Ray Charles, accompanied by his five backup singers, the Raelettes, arrived in Israel in early December 1972. In the first two weeks of that month they performed at five wildly successful concerts. Israeli fans of the “Genius of Soul” thronged the concert halls of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa. Fans cheered the musicians in the streets and the press gave their concert tour wide coverage.

The musicians spent two weeks performing and touring in the country. It was, Charles remembered, an opportunity to “look around and learn. … It was all so old, so incredibly old, that I couldn’t help but shake my head in wonder. I could smell history in the streets.”

By the early 1970s, Ray Charles and the Raelettes had given concerts all over the world. In Japan, they had encountered particularly enthusiastic audiences. But in terms of enthusiasm none of these concerts prepared Charles and his ensemble for the reception they received in Israel.

That many Israelis liked Ray Charles and his music was an understatement. I was living in Jerusalem at the time and I remember vividly the excitement that his visit generated. I also remember that by the time I made it to the concert hall box office the two Jerusalem shows were completely sold out. I never got to hear him on that tour, but news of it was in all of the Israel newspapers. It seemed that by missing that concert I had missed more than the music.

The riveting story of the Jerusalem concert is best told by the genius himself: In his autobiography, Brother Ray, (co-written with David Ritz) Charles wrote that, “In thirty years on the road, I had never experienced anything like this. We were supposed to do two shows, but the first one had the crowd so crazy and happy that they wouldn’t leave. The second crowd was due any minute, but the first crowd wasn’t about to move.”


The Jewish roots of French icon Asterix the Gaul
The iconic adventures of Asterix the Gaul may be most famous in the French-speaking world, but their inspiration is decidedly Jewish.

One of the most famous characters in French comics, and considered by many to be a French national hero, the adventures of Asterix and his sidekick Obelix are popular all over the world. The comics were translated to over 100 languages, including Latin, Welsh and Hebrew. It has inspired 10 movies, the most recent one the 2018 Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion.

But could Asterix be Jewish? While the answer is obviously no – Asterix is literally a Gaul, after all – Ateret Yerushalayim rosh yeshiva Rabbi Shlomo Aviner argues that the Jewish inspiration is clearly there.

It is important to note that the original writer behind Asterix, René Goscinny, was undoubtedly Jewish, having been born in Paris in 1926 to two Jewish immigrants from Poland. His father accepted a job in Argentina after he was born, unknowingly ensuring their family won't be harmed by the Nazi occupation of France, to which he returned in 1946.

Speaking in an interview reported by Srugim, Rabbi Aviner, who is French himself – after mentioning that this isn't as important as studying Rashi, a medieval Jewish scholar who was also French – reaffirmed Goscinny's Jewishness.

"His father was born in Warsaw, and his grandfather was a rabbi," he explained. "His Jewish identity was strong."
Jewish astronaut snaps space pics of Israel, salutes late father
Jewish astronaut Jessica Meir, who made history last month as one half of the first all-female spacewalking team, on Friday posted pictures of Israel snapped from space with a caption saying the country was part of her father’s journey.

“My father’s globe spanning journey as a surgeon from the Middle East, to Europe, and eventually to the U.S. was an inspiration to many in my immediate and extended family. #TheJourney,” Meir wrote.

Meir’s late father was born in 1925 in Baghdad, and in 1931 the whole family left Iraq as a result of anti-Semitism and settled in pre-state Israel.

He was in medical school at the American University of Beirut when the 1948 War of Independence broke out and returned to Israel, where he drove an ambulance during the war. He then went to Geneva to finish medical school before taking a job in Sweden, where he met Meir’s mother, a nurse who was raised in a Christian Swedish family.

Her parents then moved to the US.


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