UK chief rabbi accuses social media platforms of ‘complicity’ in anti-Semitism
British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis accused Twitter and Facebook of “complicity” in online anti-Semitism on Sunday, charging that the two social media giants’ “inaction” had allowed hate to flourish on their platforms.Thousands join 48-hour Twitter ‘walkout’ to protest anti-Semitism on platform
“For too long, social media has been a safe space for those who peddle hatred and prejudice,” Mirvis wrote in letters sent to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is Jewish.
“Free speech is an essential cornerstone of any civilized society, but when it is used to incite hatred and violence against others, social media companies have a responsibility to act and must do so without delay,” he wrote.
“Over the next two days, many people around the world, including myself, will be suspending their social media activity in protest against the woeful lack of responsible leadership from companies including Twitter and Facebook,” Mirvis continued.
“This cannot be allowed to stand. Your inaction amounts to complicity.”
— Chief Rabbi Mirvis (@chiefrabbi) July 26, 2020
The Chief Rabbi writes to @Jack and Mark Zuckerberg to demand #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate pic.twitter.com/s0AFO4HPSx
“This cannot be allowed to stand. Your inaction amounts to complicity. I urge you to take swift action to challenge the hatred that currently thrives on your platform.”
A host of British politicians, celebrities, high-profile figures and other users said they were signing off of Twitter for two days starting Monday morning to protest anti-Semitic hate on the social media platform.
The protest, promoted under the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate, was sparked by Twitter’s handling of a recent anti-Semitic rant by UK rap artist Wiley, and came as anti-hate groups have stepped up pressure for social media platforms to clamp down on rampant hate speech.
Wiley, 41, whose real name is Richard Cowie, posted a stream of anti-Semitic tweets Friday, claiming connections between the Jewish community and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as repeated tropes about Jews and money.
The tweets were up for 12 hours before Twitter finally deleted some of them under its “hateful conduct policy,” though others remain. He also posted anti-Semitic content on Instagram, which appeared not to have been deleted.
The grime musician, who has half a million Twitter followers, was given a seven-day suspension from the platform. Amid a wave of backlash his management company said it had cut all ties with him. He is also facing a police investigation.
Among the people and organizations going silent until Wednesday are British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and his predecessor Jonathan Sacks, members of Parliament, Israeli elected officials and leading Jewish organizations in Canada and the United States.
Before going dark, Mirvis posted a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey calling for action against anti-Semitism on the platform he co-founded more than a decade ago. “Your inaction amounts to complicity,” Mirvis wrote.
The protest took root after Jewish actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, who became famous for her role on “EastEnders,” tweeted on Friday night that she was considering abandoning Twitter over Wiley’s two-day spree of aggressively anti-Semitic posts.
HonestReporting Joins Blackout After Barrage of Twitter Antisemitism
HonestReporting is joining a widespread 48-hour Twitter ‘blackout’ after the musician known as Wiley was allowed to tweet incitement against Jews for hours unimpeded. We stand together with the demands of other Jewish organizations that are calling on Twitter to act more quickly to prevent the spread of dangerous hate speech to large audiences.
Rapper Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., better known by his stage name Wiley, spent hours on Friday mounting a relentless attack against Jews, including calls for black people to go to “war” against Jews. Wiley claimed in these tweets that Jews had usurped black people as the Hebrews, a conspiracy theory that has led to acts of terrorism against Jews, such as the stabbing attack in Monsey in New York in December 2019. Wiley also called for Jews to be shot.
Wiley’s extended rant on Twitter saw him repeatedly invoking conspiracy theories positing that Jews were responsible for the international slave trade, claiming that Jews had cheated him and were “snakes”, comparing Jews to the Ku Klux Klan, and suggesting that Jews should “hold some corn” – a colloquialism meaning that the subjects be shot.
Over the course of several hours, Wiley issued dozens of offensive tweets to his audience of over 493k followers. Twitter’s reaction was to delete a handful of his tweets and briefly suspend his account – a woefully inadequate response.
Yet despite Wiley’s large online following, his protracted rant was initially met with little coverage in the traditional media.
For years, HonestReporting has been urging the broadcast media to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. More recently, HonestReporting has taken the step of urging social media giants such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to adopt the same standard, on the understanding that social media networks are now as influential as traditional media outlets – if not more.
StandWithUs: Why I Speak Up For Israel
Brave and outspoken, Col. Richard Kemp has been on the front line in some of the world's toughest hotspots for the last 30 years. A former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Kemp is an ardent and devoted advocate for Israel and has spoken in support of Israel multiple times at the United Nations and in forums around the world. Join StandWithUs TV as we discuss what drives Col. Kemp’s unwavering support and love for the Jewish state.
Bernard-Henri Levy called ‘Jewish dog’ during visit to Libya
A visit to Libya by French writer and intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy has led to controversy over who invited him and escorted him amid a civil war in the country. Protests erupted near Tarhuna, southeast of Tripoli, and one man shouted “Jewish dog” at the French writer’s convoy, according to a video posted online. Levy is Jewish.Do Not Let Mizrahi Voices Be Invalidated
Levy wrote on Twitter that he is doing a reporting trip to the “killing fields” of Libya. He posted a photo of what he said were Libyan police protecting a free press. In the photo, men with AK-47s and covered faces can be seen, apparently protecting him. “So different from the thugs who tried to block my convoy on my way back to Misrata.”
#Tarhuna. Just after my reportage on the killing fields. These are the true Libyan police who protect free press. So different from the thugs who tried to block my convoy on my way back to #Misrata. The full reportage will be published soon. pic.twitter.com/JYW1Aa5Y2V
— Bernard-Henri Lévy (@BHL) July 25, 2020
Turkey’s pro-government Anadolu media appeared to highlight the “Jewish” aspect of the trip. He was called a “controversial French Jewish intellectual” in a headline on the pro-AK Party website, which is one of the main backers of Turkey’s militarist government.
Ankara’s ruling regime has been escalating the conflict in Libya in recent months, shipping Syrian mercenaries recruited from refugee camps to Libya and also sending drones and weapons to Tripoli. Libya is in the middle of a civil war between the Turkish-backed government in Tripoli and the Egyptian-backed forces in eastern Libya, called the Libyan National Army.
Turkish media slammed Bernard-Henri Levy for being Jewish. It noted that the interior minister of Tripoli had “denied reports of inviting [the] controversial French Jewish intellectual.”
The Government of National Accord appeared to say the journalist had come without an official government invitation and that the “public has the absolute right to react to any public event.” The Tripoli government might take harsh measures against any party involved in Levy’s visit, Anadolu reported.
My family background and history allow for a unique perspective when it comes to Israeli politics. The paternal side of my family arrived in Israel in the 1930s from Yemen; the maternal side of my family arrived in the 1950s from Poland.Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Dr. Harold Brackman: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's slam dunk against anti-Semitism
However, on social media, the dialogue pertaining to Israel pegs every member of my family, including me, as some “European white colonizer” with no connection to the region.
The absurdity of these claims gets overlooked, because of the simplicity of the argument. It attempts to paint a picture of the light-skinned European-looking Jew oppressing the darker-skinned indigenous Palestinian, to make it more easily relatable with North American politics, in a wilful distortion of history.
The effect has more than one advantage, as their statements can fit neatly in the character restrictions allotted in social media, while the proper response, which would involve explaining the Jewish people’s long history in the Diaspora, isn’t so easily summarized.
Explaining that history also does not have the same visual impact as picturing light-skinned people coming from Europe, to supplant the darker Middle Eastern natives.
The easiest way to combat this image is by simply stating how Jews like me exist, and as a majority in Israel. It is an effective counter, as it provides a glaring contradiction to their simplistic narrative, which proceeds to fall apart quickly. In comes this article in 972 online (an Israeli media), which tries to portray us speaking about our existence as “propaganda.”
What’s incredibly ironic is that this piece is written by another Mizrahi Jew. While trying to brush away other Mizrahi voices, who wish to state a simple fact that throws a big wrench into a toxic narrative, she attempts to lift her own.
The same people elevating this voice, are the ones who repeatedly use any grievances we have, and twist it into demonization, with the aim of dismantling the very state many Mizrahi Jews now call home.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been a voice against hatred in all forms since the 1970s. He may not dwell on it, he but knows firsthand how hate unanswered can explode into violence.Fleecing the flock, not just lying to them
In 1973, the Hanafi Muslim Center in Washington, DC, was attacked after Hamaas Abdul Khaalis – its head and Elijah Muhammed's former right-hand man – criticized the Nation Islam for being anti-white. The assassins failed to kill Hamaas, but slaughtered his son, Daud. Then they forced Hamaas's wife, Bibi Khaalis, to watch them drown two children in an upstairs bathtub and took her to the basement, where her 9-day-old daughter was drowned in a sink. Bibi was bound, gagged and shot eight times. Khaalis's daughter, Amina, was shot three times in a closet. Kareem, who had endowed the Hanafi Center, was a pallbearer at the children's funerals. When nine black Muslim extremists were tried for the crime, Farrakhan used his radio broadcasts to warn jurors of dire consequences if any were convicted.
As Americans struggle to sort out the post-George Floyd world, we should be increasingly concerned over selective outrage based on color and politics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed the re-election bid of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Even before her election to Congress, Omar tweeted: "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."
New York Times columnist Bari Weiss – whose public resignation from that paper exposed a biased and toxic environment replete with double standards – had correctly pointed out that Omar's statement updated the age-old "conspiracy theory of the Jew as the hypnotic conspirator." Omar wasn't done. She disparaged historic congressional support for Israel, saying as, "It's all about the Benjamins." Then came another wishy-washy apology, followed by noises from House Democrats that they would condemn Omar for her anti-Semitic comment in no uncertain terms. Instead, they blinked. The House Democratic establishment, led by Pelosi, pushed through a toothless resolution condemning a laundry list of bigotries, but not anti-Semitism in particular, and failing to mention her name.
Our national political leadership, cultural and social media influencers, and corporate giants – not least the NFL and NBA – would be wise to follow Kareem's slam dunk against anti-Semitism and restore a level playing field in the battle against hate of all kinds.
Kezban Özer is a mother who lost five children to the devastating earthquake that shook Turkey in 1983. Mustafa Bozdemir won the World Press Photo of the Year, in 1984, for capturing her heartache.Jay-Z and Jay Electronica Lick Louis Farrakhan Up and Down
Earlier this month, Ilia Rashad Muhammad exploited Özer’s pain in a despicable way, by using Bozdemir’s photo for one of many lies (see the 1:40 mark in the video below) among the hodgepodge of anti-Jewish delusion put together by the Louis Farrakhan admirer in a 4 ½ minute video.
Rashad Muhammad praises a statement, which he admits was falsely attributed to Adolph Hitler, whose Nazi party also abused Black people, as “facts that White and Jewish world powers are largely maintained by keeping Black people ignorant of our true identity of being the prophetic children of Israel.”
In forwarding his anti-Jewish agenda, Muhammad condescendingly strips Black people of agency. He claims they have been “kept ignorant” by the Jews – as if incapable of maintaining their own historical record. He negates the beauty, accomplishments, culture and struggles of Black people urging them to hijack that of the Jews.
Though he aims to wrest the Jewish homeland from the Jewish people by saying it belongs to his race, he doesn’t question the claim of the Palestinian Arabs who have also been trying to gain contril and wrest it away from the Jews (despite the Jews extending generous land offers that the Palestinian Arab leadership never accepted).
Israel is not in Africa, it’s in Asia where much of the Middle East, and their predominantly lighter complected citizens, live. With the exception of Beta Israel and the other Ethiopian Jews who are integral to Israeli society, most Black people in the Middle East (of which there are not many due to the brutal conditions Arabs subjected them to) are descendants of the millions of men and women violently captured by the Arabs (and Turks) and kept as slaves until they accepted Islam to gain freedom.
Jay Elec is far too smart to just outright say what—rather than who—it was he bagged in England, or to spell out what he thinks it means for a proud follower of the NOI to sleep with and then homewreck the prototypical rich Jew. Here on “Soulja Slim,” that psychosexual fascination with the Jews is slyly glanced at without being named. “The Synagogue of Satan wants to hang me by my collar,” Jay raps in the very next line after the Rothschild name check. Only the very obtuse could miss the reference in that one: In a 2018 speech, Farrakhan asked his followers, “I wonder, will you recognize Satan? I wonder if you will see the satanic Jew and the synagogue of Satan?”British Rapper Wiley Dropped By Manager Over Anti-Semitic Tweets
Elsewhere on the album, Jay raps about driving through the desert listening to Farrakhan lectures along with “Serge Gainsbourg or Madonna or a podcast on piranhas,” just one of the album’s many effortlessly dexterous internal rhymes. “Du’a’s up for the honorable Louis Farrakhan/Who pulled me out the grave and pointed me towards the Sunnah,” he raps on “Flux Capacitor.” “Satan struck Palestine with yet another mortar,” Jay frets on “Fruits of the Spirit.” By now, Jay hasn’t earned the assumption that he’s only talking about his objections to specific Israeli policies here.
What makes the record a mainstream hip-hop event isn’t the skill of Jay Electronica or the constant invocation of Farrakhan, who has long been selling himself as a “peacemaker” in the rap world. Rather, it’s the tacit blessing being bestowed on both men by Jay-Z, the titan whose Roc Nation label released A Written Testimony and whose Tidal streaming service has extensively promoted the album.
Jay-Z, one of the dominant figures in hip-hop, and therefore in American life, appears on eight of the 10 tracks on A Written Testimony, and Jay Elec can hardly believe his luck. Having Jay-Z as a sidekick on his full-length debut, he raps, is like winning the lottery—and he’s right. His weird tapestry of Farrakhan acclamation is legitimated and popularized through Jay-Z’s presence. More than that, A Written Testimony has some of the best rapping of Jay-Z’s entire, nearly three-decade career. Thanks to Jay Elec, Jay-Z, now 50 years old and an elder statesman of whom little is now expected in the way of actual art, is possessed of a new sense of poetry and purpose.
A Jewish fan—or at least this Jewish fan, who has been listening to Jay-Z since he was 11 years old—can’t help but wonder whether this breakthrough was really worth it, though, and wonder at what Jay really believes in his heart. Does he buy into NOI’s rhetoric on some level, a possibility for which there is at least some evidence, or is he simply supporting a friend and artistic collaborator whose work he wants to boost? Put another way: Is Jay-Z guilty of worse sins than moral deafness? Given the depth of his participation in Testimony, the answer might not even matter much.
London-based A-List Management company cut ties Saturday with grime rapper Wiley following his anti-Semitic rant on Twitter.
Announcing the decision, John Woolf, Wiley's manager and one of the company's founders, said "there is no place in society for antisemitism."
The move followed Wiley's massive anti-Semitic outburst on social media, which appeared to invoke some of the beliefs of the Nation of Islam movement, which saw its leader Louis Farrakhan claim that Jews are not the real people of Israel.
In his other tweets, at times expletives-ridden, the rapper, who is Member of the Order of the British Empire and boasts a solid following on social media, also alleged a link between the Jewish community and the Ku Klux Klan in the US.
AJC slams Ilhan Omar for invoking anti-Semitic tropes
The American Jewish Congress on Sunday blasted controversial Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for invoking anti-Semitic tropes in her campaign materials.Nick Cohen: How Corbyn’s toxic legacy continues to sabotage the Labour party
Omar again found herself in hot water after her campaign sent out a mailer identifying three Jewish donors who support her Democratic primary opponent.
"As she tries to fend off a difficult primary challenge, Rep. Omar attacked Antone Melton-Meaux, her primary opponent, for large donations he has received from donors outside the district, identifying by name only three donors – all of whom are Jewish," the AJC said in a statement.
"By deliberately mentioning only Jewish donors by name, painting Mr. Melton-Meaux as being in their 'pocket,' and questioning whether the voters can 'trust Melton-Meaux's money' the campaign flyer risks invoking age-old anti-Semitic myths that wealthy Jews control politicians and the government through money and influence.
"Rep. Omar has a long history of controversial and anti-Semitic remarks," the statement continued.
"Last year, Rep. Omar implied that Jews are 'buying' support for Israel. She has also suggested that support for Israel constitutes 'allegiance' to a foreign country, invoking the hurtful 'dual loyalty' trope that has been used to persecute and harm Jews. Rep. Omar's comments last year prompted the US House of Representatives to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of hate.
Nationally the breakdown of trust with Jews has left Labour facing potentially catastrophic legal bills. You got a taste of the toxic legacy Corbyn bequeathed his party this week when it had to pay damages and hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs to John Ware of Panorama and former Labour officials, who told the BBC last year how Corbyn’s Labour was failing to confront racism. At the time, Corbyn's Labour accused Ware of ‘deliberate and malicious misrepresentations’ and said much the same about the whistleblowers. Keir Starmer has been left with the bill. Corbyn, of course, would not accept Labour’s apology and called it a political rather than a legal decision. In all likelihood, Ware and the whistleblowers will announce they are suing him on Monday. Hundreds of left wingers have donated over £100,000 to a crowd funding appeal to cover Corbyn’s legal costs. They appear to believe that if the case went to court a meticulous, fact-checked Panorama documentary, which offered the far left the right to reply to every criticism made of it, would be exposed as a pack of lies.
Good luck with that.
Meanwhile there are dozens of legal actions stemming from an 850-page report the Corbyn faction wrote to justify itself while it still controlled the party. I’ve read the whole thing and it is a mishmash of confidential emails and WhatsApp messages the Corbynites strung together to imply that Labour officials opposed to Corbyn deliberately scuppered investigations into anti-Semitism to make the saintly leader look bad.
Names are not redacted. Privacy is not respected. When I first spoke to lawyers representing the maligned officials they wondered if they could sue the Labour party over an internal report. Perhaps they could only sue whoever leaked it to the press. It turns out they can sue Labour. Teams of solicitors are now involved in preparing multiple actions for libel, breach of data privacy and misuse of private information for about 40 clients. The costs to Labour could run into millions of pounds. So devastating are the potential losses, the Telegraph quoted one unnamed Labour frontbencher predicting they could bankrupt the party.
Corbyn and his comrades were not content to lead Labour to its worst defeat since 1935. They have left the party a legacy of booby traps that are exploding under it as it tries to rebuild from the wreckage.
VIDEO HAS SOUND.
— Milk Media (@milkmedianewyor) July 26, 2020
It's been an extremely tough week for millionaire Jeremy Corbyn. Please donate money to Jeremy's pointless court cases as Unite union subs might not be able to cover all of his legal bills.
Give what you can to Labour's greatest ever leader. #JeremyCorbyn pic.twitter.com/pNZx29JiCn
Brown University Goes All In for Palestine
They’ve created America’s first-ever chair in Palestinian Studies.Remains of 286 Jewish Holocaust victims uncovered in 2 basements in Ukraine
Brown University, the Ivy League college founded in 1764, is the latest high-profile academic institution to go all in for Palestine, a country that does not exist. Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies, a Ramallah on the Hudson, still occupies first place in excusing Palestinian violence, exaggerating Israeli responses to Palestinian terrorism, and inculcating new generations of BDS ideologues. But Brown has just upped the ante by endowing America’s first-ever chair in Palestinian Studies.
This is not merely a symbolic gesture, but a significant commitment, hailed in the press as a “milestone” and proclaimed as Palestinians “Finally getting a place at the academic table.” Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, its Center for Middle East Studies, and its New Directions in Palestinian Studies research initiative will now collaborate in a synergistic venture, spending money and hiring teachers to indoctrinate students and “inform the community” about the evils of Israeli colonialism, while stamping its imprimatur on the virtues of the Palestinian cause. Call it the Providence Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The new position is named for Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, whom Brown University calls “a towering and beloved figure of Palestinian and Arab literature and humanistic values.” Humanistic values? Mahmoud Darwish was many things, but a humanist he was not. As a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), he wrote and edited its monthly journal and served as director of its research center. He was also the author of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. In the picture below he is seated between two of the Palestinians’ arch-terrorists, Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, and George Habash, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Darwish’s self-indulgent and self-pitying poetry is filled with antagonistic, bellicose imagery. As a prime example, consider his most famous poem, “Identity Card,” which ends with this quatrain:
And yet, if I were to become hungry
I shall eat the flesh of my usurper.
Beware, beware of my hunger
And of my anger!
Has the Ivy League so completely rewritten the history of humanism that Darwish’s poetic invocations of cannibalistic murder are now hip and cool beyond a Palestinian audience?
The remains of 286 Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust were found in two basements in a town in southwest Ukraine.Swastika daubed near Jewish educational institute in suburban Cleveland
The remains, mostly women and children, will be buried in a mass grave in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Sataniv, the Ynet news site reported.
The town had an organized Jewish community for about 500 years before the Nazis captured it in 1941 and began systematically killing its Jews, according to the Yad Vashem website.
On May 15, 1942, Nazi troops and Ukrainian military police locked the 286 Jews in the cellars and suffocated them.
After World War II, the bodies were left in place in the cellars with a sign indicating that they were Nazi victims. The ruined house above them eventually covered the cellars with a heap of rubble and an outdoor market operated over the area for many years, according Ynet.
Rabbi Alexander Feingold, of the Khmelnytsky and Ternopil districts in Ukraine, told Ynet that his community waged a six-year legal battle with the property owner to search the cellars. Though the community lost in the courts, it eventually reached an agreement with the landowner, according to the report. Some of the bodies were discovered in 2019, and the rest were found about two weeks ago.
Feingold said a park will be established in memory of the victims near the site of the massacre.
A swastika and other graffiti were spray-painted on several buildings, including a Jewish organization, in a shopping strip in a heavily Jewish Cleveland suburb.Israeli startup Nextage to join forces with Tempo for cannabis-based drinks
The graffiti, which also said “666,” a term referring to the devil, and the phrase “Party with the Devil B*tch,” was discovered Sunday.
The vandalized storefront buildings in University Heights include the Waxman Torah Center, which also is home to the Jewish Learning Connection outreach organization. The building bears signs for both.
The swastika was painted on the wall of Friedman, Leavitt & Associates, an accounting firm that has been at the same location for 30 years, the Cleveland Jewish News reported. Other graffiti was found on Mika’s Wig Boutique & Spa.
Among the strip of storefronts are a kosher butcher and several Jewish-owned shops.
Graffiti also was discovered on a supermarket across the street that has been vandalized previously.
A University Heights Police spokesperson told the Cleveland Jewish News that it is in possession of security video and is investigating.
Ness Ziona, Israel-based Nextage Innovation, a maker of cannabis-based products, said Monday it has entered into an agreement in principle with Israel’s Tempo Beverages Ltd. to set up a joint firm to develop cannabis-based products for the foods and beverage industries.Israel’s Zebra gets FDA nod for AI-based software that helps spot breast cancer
The joint venture will also develop and sell new technologies for the food and beverage industry, the two firms said in a statement.
Tempo, which produces, imports and markets alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, is Israel’s largest brewer and second-largest beverages firm. The firm is part owned by the brewer Heineken International Beheer B.V.
Nextage said in the statement that the joint venture is a “significant strategic milestone” to consolidate its position at the forefront of cannabis-based products.
Nextage Innovation holds a license from the Israeli Health Ministry for the development, testing and manufacturing of cannabis products, and was founded in 2018, according to the database of Start-Up Nation Central. The firm is soon to be part of the shell company Micromedic Technologies Ltd., a holding biopharmaceutical firm traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
The firms said the company will be owned in equal parts and that a final agreement will be signed within 90 days.
Zebra Medical Vision, an Israeli startup that uses machine learning technology to read and analyze data from CT and X-ray scans, said it has received a nod from the US Food and Drug Administration that will allow the firm to market its product in the US, to help physicians detect the buildup of calcium in coronary arteries, which serves as a measure of heart disease risk.Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate moves into late-stage trial
Zebra’s AI-based automated coronary calcium detection product is capable of automatically calculating a patient’s coronary calcium score from CT scans, providing physicians with important data that enables them to assess the risk of coronary artery disease, Zebra said.
A coronary calcium scan measures the amount of calcium in the walls of coronary arteries. Overview. Calcification is a sign of atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, or coronary microvascular disease.
The approval is the first Zebra has received from the FDA and “one of the first ones for AI” in healthcare imaging, Eyal Gura, the co-founder and chairman of Zebra said by email.
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of death in the US, both in men and women, according to the US National Library of Medicine.
The disease occurs when the arteries that supply blood to the heart harden and narrow, due to the buildup of cholesterol and other materials on the inner walls of the arteries. As a result, the heart muscle can’t get the blood or oxygen it needs.
According to estimates, nearly one-half of men and one-third of women over 40 years old will develop some symptoms of CAD in the United States.
Moderna Inc said on Monday it has started a U.S. government-backed late-stage trial for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the first to be implemented under the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed anti-coronavirus program.Sight Diagnostics Raises $71 Million Amidst Covid-19 Demand for Blood Count Devices
News of the study, which will test the response to the vaccine in 30,000 adults who do not have the respiratory illness, pushed shares in Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna up 11% at $81.31 before the bell.
The federal government is supporting Moderna's vaccine project with nearly a billion dollars and has chosen it as one of the first to enter large-scale human trials.
More than 150 vaccine candidates are in various stages of development, with 23 prospects in human trials across the globe. Moderna and British firm AstraZeneca Plc are leading the race with their candidates in late-stage studies.
While rival AstraZeneca said last week it was still on track to be producing doses by September, they and other drugmakers are now targeting delivery of a fully-tested vaccines by the end of the year at the earliest.
"Having a safe and effective vaccine distributed by the end of 2020 is a stretch goal, but it's the right goal for the American people," National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said.
Moderna said it remains on track to deliver about 500 million doses a year, and possibly up to 1 billion doses a year, beginning 2021.
Israeli blood testing startup S.D. Sight Diagnostics has raised $71 million from international venture capital funds and US corporations, Clal Biotechnology Industries revealed in a report sent to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange last week. Sight Diagnostics has yet to announce the details of the new funding round, but Clal Biotechnology Industries stated in its report that, following the news, its Anatomy Technology Fund, of which it holds a 50% stake, now owns 4% of Sight Diagnostics.Disinfectant tunnels and 3 other Israeli ideas that may help tackle COVID-19
Sight raised a $27.8 million series C round in December 2018, with the round being led by Longliv Ventures, a member of multinational health and beauty conglomerate the CK Hutchison Group. Existing investors OurCrowd, Go Capital, and New Alliance Capital also participated.
Sight isn’t involved in Covid-19 detection, but its complete blood count (CBC) test is being used across the world to help treat coronavirus patients who require constant testing to determine their condition.
“After proving our technology in malaria detection, it became overwhelmingly clear to us that the CBC, the world’s most common blood test, is where we’d make the most impact,” said Sarah Levy, Sight’s CTO, following the series C announcement. “The ability to create rich digital images of blood samples and analyze them in minutes has enormous potential to improve diagnostics and patient care.”
As the coronavirus crisis seems poised to stay with us for the near future, with no vaccine expected in the coming months, a host of Israeli companies and researchers are developing technological tools to make our lives as easy as possible in the meantime, preventing infections and helping authorities get more data and invest fewer resources.Groundbreaking blood test can detect cancer years before symptoms appear
Here are several examples featured on Friday in a report by Channel 12, many of which are still in development and testing stages.
Fresh start
Aura Air is a startup that says it has developed an air freshener that kills the coronavirus with 99.99 percent efficiency.
Its CEO, Aviad Schneiderman, said its product could render indoor spaces safe, as studies around the world show the vast majority of COVID-19 infections happen indoors.
“Our level of disinfection and purification is one of the highest, we know to clear the air of germs, viruses, bacteria, mold, fungi and more,” he said, adding that a trial has been conducted at Sheba Medical Center and will soon start in a school.
A new blood test can detect various types of cancer years before previously possible with traditional detection methods, according to a new research published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.Canadian philanthropists launch scholarship for Ethiopian-Israelis
Early detection of cancer has the potential to significantly decrease death rates caused by the disease. Scientists have tried for years to develop a cancer screening-test that would reliably detect malignancy potential before tumor cells have the chance to spread, making treatment more effective. But until today, most attempts were unsuccessful or had partial results at best.
Developed by a Sino-US startup, the groundbreaking new blood test is referred to as PanSeer. It was developed by an international team of scientists at the University of California, who were successfully able to diagnose five different types of cancer long before symptoms appeared in the patients it tested.
The five types of cancer that PanSeer can currently detect are stomach cancer, esophageal cancer, bowel cancer, lung cancer and liver cancer, all fairly common.
The test is based on a technique that was developed over a decade and allows detection of malignant tumors in their early stages, which haven't led to any symptoms yet and were thus undetectable with previous methods.
Previous detections methods typically involved researchers collecting blood samples from people already diagnosed with the disease.
The Morris and Rosalind Goodman Family Foundation, based in Montreal, Canada, announced Monday that they have launched a scholarship program aimed at supporting Israeli graduate students of Ethiopian descent, in partnership with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, according to a press release from the organization.
Noting the under-representation of Ethiopian-Israelis within academia, Morris and Rosalind Goodman Family Foundation said that the scholarship's goal is to help the community overcome hurdles presented in their integration into Israeli society.
The scholarship will provide Ethiopian Israeli graduate students who are engaged in social, community or academic leadership activities financial assistance to help in easing the monetary burden of their studies, which will be divided equally between students at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Hebrew University (HU).
The press release added that the result of the initiative is to support a new generation of Ethiopian-Israeli leaders in academic and the wider Israeli society.
“The intention of this grant is to help on multiple levels,” says Maxyne Finkelstein, President of MRGFF. “It is to assist students with financial needs and also to raise awareness of the importance of graduate studies for this population in the context of creating greater social and economic benefit through advanced education.”
Both TAU and HU commended the initiative and highlighted their commitment to supporting Ethiopian-Israeli graduate students on their path to positions of leadership.