Tuesday, April 14, 2020

04/14 Links Pt2: Will the coronavirus outbreak change the world forever?; Latma: Passover under Corona clouds - Let this virus go; Honoring Holocaust victims with personalized memorial candles

From Ian:
Will the coronavirus outbreak change the world forever?
The coronavirus global pandemic will have a lasting impact upon interpersonal, national, and inter-state dynamics long after it subsides.

The first area that has, and will continue to be shaken is the interpersonal web of relations among people. After the pandemic dies down, many will experience conflicting drives: After weeks or more in isolation, they will be hungry for company, for meeting and socializing. But they will also be keenly aware of the risk of close contact. A longing for the contact of others will clash with the wariness of being infected. It will be a time of contradictions.

The coming adjustment period may serve as a basis for hope that relationships, from people to states, will be more cordial and based more upon common understandings as a result of the shared, global trauma.

But the most dramatically affected sphere is the economy, of course. So many have lost their sources of income and customer base; particularly small business owners. The recovery period will be lengthy and painful.

Customers and clients of local businesses will be disappointed to discover that places familiar to them will have shuttered. For the businesses that do survive, a general worldwide restart will be required.

Internationally, many issues that appeared pressing prior to the pandemic will likely recede in prominence once the world begins its recovery.

Israel and annexation
In the Middle East, for example, the issue of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory, which was a highly divisive topic prior to the virus's spread, is now destined to take a back seat. The State of Israel will not be in a position to deal with the annexation issue in the coming six months. Every government ministry will be fully engaged with implementing a coronavirus exit strategy.

All non-coronavirus issues will be pushed aside, including former diplomatic hot topics that occupied the minds and the agendas of politicians and political parties busy in the pre-COVID-19 era.

A change can also be expected in the conduct between governments. The common global fate, an outgrowth of the pandemic, will create a new sense of worldwide identification; not only because of a shared experience, but also because of the mutual assistance that will be required. The experience of tragedies that have rocked countries such as the US, Spain and Italy may well change how international relations are conducted.
Could the coronavirus bring peace among Israelis and Palestinians?
In a region infamous for its sectarian tension, the coronavirus has catalyzed an unlikely alliance between the Israeli and Palestinian governments. Last Tuesday, the Palestine branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs praised “unprecedented cooperation on efforts aimed at containing the epidemic” between Israeli and Palestinian authorities in their preliminary emergency situation report. The respective governments of the Jewish State and Palestinian territories, in a seemingly eternal state of conflict, find themselves united for the first time as they battle against a common enemy.

Despite perpetual tension, the economies of Israel and Palestine are closely intertwined. Both rely heavily on international tourism to their world-famous historic and religious sites. 2019 was a record-breaking year for both economies' tourism industries; Israel welcomed 4.55 million tourists, the highest number to date, adding 23 billion shekels to the economy, while Palestine also saw record-breaking numbers, surpassing 3 million visitors. Millions of tourists travel to the countries’ holy sites each year, making a pilgrimage to Israel’s Jerusalem and Palestine’s Bethlehem, where Jesus is said to have been born. Just a few kilometers apart, these two cities have been the hardest hit in the region during the pandemic. Numbers of confirmed cases in Jerusalem are over 1,700, while Bethlehem has over 150, with much higher numbers of unconfirmed cases feared by both governments.

“Little is known about the collaboration of Israeli and Palestinian tour operators,” says Yossi Orbach, CEO of Israel’s leading tour operator, Tourist Israel, “we stay in close touch with our Palestinian partners and support them during these hard times. This crisis has many Israelis realizing now that we have much more similarities with Palestinians than differences.” Tourist Israel operates a daily Jerusalem, Dead Sea, & Bethlehem tour and an annual Christmas Eve in Bethlehem tour in close collaboration with a local Palestinian operator. Tourist Israel’s founder, Ben Julius, is proud to welcome tourists to experience the Israel and Palestine that the media doesn’t highlight. He points to the viral photograph of two Magen David Adom volunteers, one Jewish and one Muslim, taking a break from saving lives to pray together. “This photo is so moving and has rightfully attracted a lot of attention, but for many people, this is life in Israel. There is a lot of coexistence and interconnectedness that the rest of the world doesn’t see. The tourism industry has played a vital role in promoting collaboration between Israelis and Palestinians, and can serve as an example for other sectors as well”.

Economic cooperations are vital in other sectors as well: approximately 120,000 Palestinian laborers work in Israel in the fields of construction, agriculture and services. The travel restrictions imposed to fight the coronavirus have forced Israeli and Palestinian government officials to work together to find solutions aimed at reducing the risk of cross-border transmissions while trying to minimize disrupting the jobs and labor that both economies rely on. To achieve this, Israel approved for the first time ever for tens of thousands of Palestinian day workers to stay overnight within its borders and even assists in arranging housing solutions for them.

Latma 2020 Episode 4 for Passover under Corona clouds - Let this virus go




UNIFIL soldiers break up ‘short standoff’ between IDF and Lebanese troops
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon broke up a “short standoff” between Israeli and Lebanese troops south of the Blue Line border demarcation between the two countries, a UNIFIL spokesman tells The Times of Israel.

The incident took place between the southern Lebanese village of Adaisseh and the northern Israeli town of Metulla, Andrea Tenenti says, saying that while it was south of the Blue Line, Lebanon deems the area to be contested.

“Tension increased. Our troops were in the middle with the aim of preventing misunderstandings and decreasing tension,” Tenenti says. “Shortly after the situation went back to normal.”

A photo from the scene shows Israeli and Lebanese troops with their weapons cocked at one another.

The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


JPost Editorial: We must save Jewish newspapers from shutting down
It was distressing to learn that two Jewish newspapers in Britain - The Jewish Chronicle and The Jewish News - as well as the Canadian Jewish News recently announced plans to shut down due to the economic damage caused by the novel coronavirus.

Jewish papers throughout the world perform two vital functions: they report on local and international news affecting their community, while caring for communal needs as well. It is not too late to save these papers. And especially in the age of coronavirus and rising antisemitism, every effort should be made to keep the Jewish press alive everywhere.

In a Facebook post, The Jerusalem Post’s Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz sounded the alarm about the newspaper closures in the UK and Canada.

“This should serve as a warning of what is still to come,” he said. “Now, more than ever, journalism is needed. The world has been struck by a pandemic – but without journalism, our governments operate without transparency and accountability. Voices need to be heard, stories need to be told and, most importantly, the democratic values we stand for need to be upheld.”
Researcher Alan D. Abbey writes in a study he conducted on Jewish journalists at Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute that the first
publication recognized as a Jewish newspaper was the Ladino-language Gazeta de Amsterdam, begun in 1675. A Yiddish paper appeared five years later, also in Amsterdam – then one of the centers of Diaspora Jewry and home to both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.

“A Jewish press engaged in the kind of work we would recognize today as journalism only developed about 100 years later, with a series of publications in Russia and Poland in both Yiddish and Hebrew,” Abbey says. “The first US newspaper with a Jewish name, Cohen’s Gazette and Lottery Register, from 1814, was more of a gambling and tout sheet than a newspaper. The first American newspaper aimed at and written for a Jewish audience was Philadelphia’s The Occident in 1843.”
David Collier: The crypto currency that ridicules and trades on the Holocaust
Some things are too sickening to digest properly, and I can rarely remember being as horrified by an item as I was whilst researching this. Some things cannot be unseen. This exclusive is about a new Crypto currency that turns the Holocaust into a sick trading joke.

I am neither pretending to be an expert in crypto-currency nor do you need a working knowledge of crypto-currencies to understand the issue. Some things are clearly sick on sight.
The Holocaust as a crypto currency

This crypto currency was brought to my attention by Jewish Human Rights Watch. It is called ‘Holocoin‘. Incredibly, it gives you the option to buy or sell Jews. The website asks the trader clearly – ‘will you save them, or let them burn’:

With the website burning Jews ‘at the rate of 4,107 each day’, (the website claims this is equivalent to the rate at which Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust), a ‘by-product’ is created – ash. It is therefore also possible to buy ‘ash’ – the remains of the Jews they have burnt:

There is no denial here. Nor open glorification. To excuse themselves, the founders claim the crypto-currency is educational. They are pretending to care.

The new crypto currency
The website, ‘theholocoin.net’ was only purchased on April 2nd. The site is registered and hosted by the Canadian internet service company Tucows. The Twitter handle appears to have been set up in the last week. The only Tweet so far is a proud announcement that the crypto-currency has been listed on the ForkDelta exchange. Holocoin started trading just a week ago. For those that understand or want to – it is an ‘ERC-20‘ token, which means it is designed for use on the Ethereum platform (a ‘competitor’ to Bitcoin).

There appear to have been hundreds of trades in the past week. At the time of writing, there are 208 accounts holding the currency.

The two founders have the usernames ‘Smaug Hitler’ and ’30YearOldHimmler’:


Where have they been for the past five years? The first research of its kind on each of the new Shadow Cabinet members’ records on antisemitism
Sir Keir Starmer has selected his Shadow Cabinet, following his election as Leader of the Labour Party. During the tenure of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party became institutionally antisemitic, was investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), following a complaint by Campaign Against Antisemitism, and caused almost half of all British Jews to consider leaving the country.

In these unique circumstances, it is of interest to the Jewish community and the wider public what the members of the new Shadow Cabinet have said and done over the past five years in respect of Labour’s antisemitism crisis.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has analysed the records of every member of the new Shadow Cabinet in the first research of its kind, available in full below. We previously published our analysis of Sir Keir’s record.

The deepest stain on the records of each of the new members is their overall inaction during the years of Mr Corbyn’s leadership despite the Party’s descent into racism. They were bystanders when several Jewish colleagues were hounded out of the Party, and they stood by too when principled colleagues made the difficult decision to leave the Party because they could not countenance campaigning for the antisemite Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister, which all of the new members of the Shadow Cabinet did at the end of last year. Indeed some members of Sir Keir’s Shadow Cabinet served in Mr Corbyn’s. Collectively, they have a mountain to climb in order to reclaim the authority to speak out against antisemitism — or indeed any form of prejudice.

Some of Sir Keir’s Shadow Cabinet members have long records on antisemitism – whether positive, negative or mixed – but it is equally telling when their records are short, as it signifies just how little they did as their once fiercely anti-racist Party became mired in anti-Jewish hatred.




Berlin confirms to the 'Post' it banned Palestinian terrorist for 4 years
A spokesman for Berlin’s interior ministry told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the government of the capital city imposed a four-year ban on the alleged Palestinian terrorist Khaled Barakat.

Martin Pallgen, spokesman for the interior ministry, told the Post “Mr. B. was expelled by the State Office for Immigration ((former immigration office) in mid-February 2020 and blocked with a four-year new entry ban.”

When asked if the Post could receive a copy of the legal decision to prohibit Barakat’s entry to Germany, Pallgen replied: “In this case, this is not a [legal] judgment, but a decision from the LEA [State Office for Immigration]. For reasons of data protection, I cannot send this to you.”

When asked why the ban was restricted to four years, Pallgen said that "According to the requirements of German and European law, a ban on entry and residence must be limited in time. The length of the period is at the discretion of the authority and in most cases may not exceed 5 years."

The Post reported last week that alleged PFLP terrorist Barakat, who is based in Canada, said in a webinar in late March that the German authorities imposed a “four-year ban on me entering Germany" because “I support [the Palestinians'] right to resist Israel, call for the liberation of Palestine from river to sea… that I support the Palestinian organization and they name it the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).”
BDS Founder Okays Watching Israeli Porn (satire)
Omar Barghouti, the founder of the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel, has loosened restrictions against watching Israeli pornography for the duration of the coronavirus lockdown.

“If an Israeli finds a cure for cancer or makes a remarkably hardcore porno video, we do not ask that supporters of the Palestinian cause or Palestinians themselves boycott these innovations,” Barghouti told The Mideast Beast. “Taking life-saving Israeli medication or watching hot Jewish girl-on-girl action is not normalization of ties with the Zionist occupation.”

It is the second significant concession by Barghouti in the past week. The Palestinian activist earlier said that it is permitted to use a vaccine for COVID-19 if one is invented by Israelis. Looking to avoid further confusion and another public announcement, BDS has released a list of situations in which it is permitted to violate the boycott.
Second synagogue vandalized in Huntsville, Alabama, days after the first
A second US synagogue has been vandalized in Huntsville, Alabama, days after another one was plastered with anti-Semitic slurs.

The Chabad of Huntsville was spray-painted with swastikas and what local media described as anti-Semitic graffiti and racial slurs on Thursday night.

Surveillance video showed an unidentified suspect painting on the synagogue’s property for about 20 minutes. The graffiti was painted on the organization’s driveway, garage doors, a mailbox and more.

On Wednesday night, the Etz Chayim Synagogue, a Conservative congregation of about 60 families in South Huntsville, was vandalized with neo-Nazi graffiti.

“If the intention of the hate crime was to bring hate and division in our midst, he failed miserably. Instead, we have a wonderful showing of togetherness and love that I know to be the true character of our community. Our friends and neighbors have been wonderful, and the community at large has certainly turned an act of hate into an outpouring of love,” Chabad directors Rabbi Moshe and Mushky Cohen wrote in a post on Facebook on Saturday night, at the end of two days of the Passover holiday and Shabbat.

The graffiti was removed by powerwashing on Friday.
Third Recent Arson Attack Results in Significant Damage to Russia Synagogue
A northern Russian synagogue was severely damaged on Sunday, during the holiday of Passover, in what was an apparent arson attack, according to the local Jewish community.

Although no one was hurt in the fire, the entrance hall of the Northern Star Jewish community center and synagogue in Arkhangelsk, some 750 miles north of Moscow, was torched.

“At about 3:40 am, a perpetrator threw tires over the fence, then climbed over, quickly moved the tires closer to the building, doused them with a flammable liquid and set them on fire. Firefighters arrived 15 minutes later, when the facade was already blazing,” said Anatoly Obermeister, who heads the Russian Jewish Congress’ Northern Region, in a statement.

His comments were based on video surveillance.

The perpetrators are unknown and have yet to be caught.

Obermeister noted that it was the communal property’s third arson since 2015, though the previous two resulted in little damage.
Senior priest in Romania accused of likening Jews to virus in Easter greeting
A senior priest in the Catholic Church of Romania on Thursday appeared to liken Jews to a virus, in a filmed Easter greeting.

The reference was part of the message, sent out to national television stations, by Father Francisc Dobos, the spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Bucharest.

The disciples of Jesus, he said, reading from the Christian Bible, “feared the Jews, and here in the bracket we should read: feared the virus.”

In an open letter, the head of a Romanian group devoted to fighting anti-Semitism wrote that Dobos’s apparent effort to make his message more relatable by connecting Scripture to present-day concerns and fears fell short.

“Unfortunately, what many of the listeners of your message will [hear will] be the comparison between Jews and a killer virus,” said Maximillian Marco Katz, director of the MCA Romania Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. “And so the traditional religious anti-Semitism is passed down from generation to generation, for over 2,000 years.”
Israeli 18-25s volunteer in droves to help during corona
The undisputed heroes of the coronavirus pandemic are the men and women working long shifts in all our hospitals.

But many of them couldn’t get to work without a corona-compliant childcare alternative. This is being provided at 16 Israeli medical centers by an extraordinary volunteer organization called Lev Echad (One Heart) Community Crisis Aid.

Founded in 2005, Lev Echad is like a phoenix: It goes dormant between disasters and awakens quickly when the next emergency hits.

Lev Echad’s volunteer leaders, all in their early 20s, use personal connections and social media to recruit thousands of young citizens quickly, working hand in hand with local authorities to place them where needed most.

In the current situation, Lev Echad has about 12,422 active volunteers (and counting) plus another 13,000 on reserve. Most volunteers are between 18 and 25 years old. On any given day, hundreds of them go out to accomplish a range of needed activities.

“We have five operation centers across the country where people can call in and tell us what they need,” says coordinator Idan Dardik, 23. As of April 12, the total number of incoming calls was nearing 8,000.

“Hundreds of calls are received every day: people in quarantine who need help with grocery shopping; elderly people who seek assistance with buying medicine; a single mother who needs to get her child to a medical treatment; people in need who are usually helped by a charity that is now suspended; and many, many more,” he says.




March of the Living launches Virtual Holocaust Remembrance Initiative
“This year, for the first time in 32 years, we are not able to march in Auschwitz-Birkenau,” says Dr. Shmuel Rosenman, world chair of the March of the Living, “but that will not stop us. We will continue to educate the next generation with the values we have been teaching for three decades.” Due to the Coronavirus world pandemic, the 2020 March of the Living will not take place on Holocaust Remembrance Day, but the organization remains committed to advancing the educational message of the March despite the cancellation of this year’s march. In that spirit, Rosenman today announced “#NeverMeansNever”, a unique global Holocaust remembrance project that allows individuals around the world to participate in one of the most meaningful personal moments of the March by composing a personal message, and ‘placing it’ against the backdrop of the infamous train tracks at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The project reflects the ongoing determination of the March of the Living to promote the importance of memory by utilizing innovative technology to teach the timeless lessons of the Holocaust. Rosenman added, “Our commitment to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and to future generations is that we will always be here to remind the world of the most horrific event in the history of humanity and the appalling consequences of racism and antisemitism.”

The March of the Living is the largest annual international experiential Holocaust education program in the world and has taken place in Poland without interruption since its inception in 1988. Each year thousands of participants from 150 communities around the globe participate in the March, including survivors, students, adults, liberators and educators from the United States, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Italy, United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Hungary, France, Australia and Poland. To date, more than 260,000 March of the Living participants have walked the 3.2 kilometers from Auschwitz to Birkenau in tribute to the greatest loss in the history of the Jewish people and all humanity.

“We were bitterly disappointed to have to postpone this year’s March of the Living. However, we remain utterly determined to ensure that the unparalleled tragedy of the Holocaust remains at the forefront of the world’s conscience. Given the distressing recent rise in global antisemitism and today’s need for greater compassion and tolerance, the lessons of the Holocaust are more relevant than ever,” commented March of the Living president, Phyllis Greenberg Heideman. She continued, “The ‘#NeverMeansNever’ campaign is an important opportunity for people across the world not only to remember the Holocaust but to commit to building a better future for all members of the human family.”


Honoring Holocaust victims with personalized memorial candles
On April 21, Israel and the diaspora will observe Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day), which usually involves large-scale events in which people talk about the horrors of World War II. This year, due to policies aimed at stopping the spread of coronavirus, traditional events will not be held.

Our 6 Million, an organization aimed at Holocaust education, is now offering personalized labels for yahrzeit candles (memorial candles), allowing families to ensure that their loved ones are remembered.

The sticker includes the name of the person as well as a brief biography and a QR code, which enables smartphone users to learn more about the person.


The organization has collected 250,000 names and personal stories, as of April 14. Our 6 Million is asking people to place lit yahrzeit candles on their windows on Monday, April 20, at 7 p.m. as a way of remembering the victims together, while remaining apart.

There is no cost to print the sticker and Our 6 Million arranged for Shufersal to give out memorial candles on Sunday to promote the initiative. The supermarket chain will also include a candle, free of cost, in every delivery from a list of branches listed on the Our 6 Million's site.
Passover Toast of Israeli President & IDF Chief With IDF Soldiers


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