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Sunday, August 08, 2021

08/08 Links: The PA has already paid $1,183,257 to the terrorists who blew up the Sbarro pizza shop murdering 15; For Anti-Zionists, 'Palestine' Does Not Stop at the Green Line

From Ian:

PMW: Blood money: The PA has already paid $1,183,257 to the terrorists who blew up the Sbarro pizza shop murdering 15 and injuring 130
Tomorrow, August 9, 2021, will mark 20 years since the attack on the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem. 15 people were murdered, including 5 members of one family, and 130 people were injured.

As a reward for carrying out the attack, each month the Palestinian Authority pays a total of US$8,006 (25,800 shekels) to the imprisoned terrorists and the families of the dead terrorists, who were involved in the attack.

By now, the PA has paid Abdullah Barghouti, the terrorist who built the bomb and is responsible for the murder of 67 people in various attacks, a cumulative sum of US$285,571 (921,500 shekels). Every month, the PA pays him a salary of US$2,255 (7,300 shekels). In addition, the PA has paid the family of the suicide bomber US$68,498 (221,400 shekels). Every month the PA continues to pay his family an allowance of US$432 (1,400 shekels). The minimum wage in the PA is 1,450 shekels/month (US$44).

The monthly PA salary payments to the imprisoned terrorists are not just a whim. Rather, they are codified in the PA Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners, No. 19 of 2004 and regulations promulgated pursuant to the law.

Thus, "Government Decision No. (23) for 2010 regarding a regulation of payment of a monthly salary to the prisoner" sets the salary scale the PA pays to imprisoned terrorists, including additional benefits for married terrorists, terrorists who have children, and terrorists who are residents or citizens of the State of Israel.

In addition to the issue of payments, section 4 of the Law of Prisoners stipulates that the PA will not sign a peace agreement "without the release of all prisoners", including terrorists like Abdullah Barghouti and hundreds of other terrorists like him, who are responsible for killing thousands of people.

The PA payments to the families of the dead terrorists (so-called “Martyrs”) is not regulated by law. Rather, these payments are made based on internal regulations of the PLO Institute for the Care of the Families ‎of the Martyrs and the Wounded, which is entirely funded by the PA.


Father dies by suicide on grave of son killed by Gaza rocket fire in 2014
Moshe Etzion, 88, the bereaved father of Ze’ev Etzion who was killed by rocket fire from Gaza during the 2014 war, took his own life at the gravesite of his son on the Hebrew anniversary of his death on Sunday.

The Etzion family lived in the southern Kibbutz Nirim, near the border with the Strip.

Moshe Etzion left his home early Sunday morning, and after he did not return for a number of hours, authorities launched a search for him.

He was found dead next to the grave of his son in the kibbutz, the Eshkol Regional Council said. He is to be buried tomorrow in Nirim.

His son Ze’ev, also known as Zevik, was a local security officer for the kibbutz during the 2014 war, as well as an emergency medic and ambulance driver.

Ze’ev was killed on August 26, 2014, when a Hamas-launched mortar shell landed in the kibbutz and shrapnel hit him. The seventh anniversary of his death fell on Sunday, according to the Jewish calendar.
For Anti-Zionists, 'Palestine' Does Not Stop at the Green Line
In the aftermath of the recent uproar over the Ben & Jerry's ice cream company announcing it would boycott the "Occupied Palestinian Territory," it is worthwhile to look closer at that term: "Occupied Palestinian Territory."

In 1964, Ahmad el-Shukairy convened a conference at which he created a terror movement called the "Palestine Liberation Organization." The PLO undertook to perpetrate terror acts against civilians to "liberate Palestine from the Israelis." At the time Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"), and Egypt occupied Gaza. Yet, none of the PLO's terror campaign was aimed at driving Jordan or Egypt out of those illegally occupied lands. Rather, to liberate the newly fabricated "Palestine," all PLO terror aimed instead at driving the Jews out of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ra'anana, and other cities, towns, and villages in pre-1967 Israel and "into the [Mediterranean] sea."

It always has been Arab Muslim Orthodoxy that "Palestine" actually is the entire country of Israel, not merely Judea and Samaria. Just contemplate the emblems of the "Palestine" terror groups, including the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

That is their "Occupied Palestine Territory" – not the "West Bank" nor Gaza but all of Israel. It is as clear as day — on their flags and banners. It is their logo. There is no need to gain fluency in Arabic to grasp what is on their minds and in their attack plans.

To the degree they claim they want "back" their "Palestine territory" from which they claim they were "expelled," anti-Zionists' demands would not be resolved by telling Arabs who claim their families once lived in Akko (Acre) or Yafo (Jaffa) that, in satisfaction of their aspirations, they now may have Jenin in Samaria or Beit Hanoun in Gaza. People claiming Akko or Yafo lineage do not want Gaza. It's like a real estate agent telling a Chicago-based Midwestern American Jew seeking to relocate to the Brooklyn, NY of his childhood: "I know you have a cultural longing for Brooklyn, the sights of Flatbush, old Ebbets Field where the baseball Dodgers played, Boro Park and Crown Heights, and Irv's Knishery of Canarsie. Unfortunately, I cannot offer you that, but here is something that is basically identical: I have a listing in Chubbuck, Idaho and another in Waterloo, Iowa. Believe me, you won't know the difference."


Linoy Ashram exemplifies Israeli excellence
Linoy's long road, from childhood to the Tokyo Olympic Games, all led to two days of truth in which every part of the huge puzzle had to come together, two days in which she needed to be the best she could be, better than everyone else, the best in the world. Two days in which technical, physical, and mental abilities had to come together as one; two days in which she had to cast out all her fears and concentrate on her chances of success despite the risk of failure.

Linoy Ashram and Ayelet Zussman woke up Saturday in Tokyo to a morning on which only the limits of human endurance counted. Nothing else would be enough, certainly not against the wonderful, experienced competitors who represented the world's biggest rhythmic gymnastics powerhouse. They looked them straight in the eyes, and attained physical and mental heights that are an example for every boy and girl in Israel.

Yesterday, Linoy gve me an unforgettable experience at the eighth Olympic Games I attended, and after I thought I'd already seen it all. I was as excited as a little girl to sing "Hatikvah," wrapped in an Israeli flag and surrounded by the support staff of Israeli sports – professional managers, doctors, psychologists.

The dedicated, determined, and modest Linoy Ashram is part of the biggest and most successful Israeli Olympic delegation to date. A delegation with depth, made up of athletes and coaches who made it, who fill our hearts with immense pride.

There is no doubt that every member of the delegation is an example of Israeli excellence.


Russian Internet Trolls Target Israel’s Gold Medal-Winning Gymnast, Linoy Ashram
Russian Internet users, furious that Israel’s Linoy Ashram secured the gold medal at the rhythmic gymnastic event during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, have launched a wave of criticism at the athlete.

The Russians were mirroring the stance of the country’s Olympic team, which expressed outrage that Ashram beat their three-time world champion athlete Dina Averina to the top of the podium. They argued that the judges erred in not punishing Ashram more severely for apparently dropping the ribbon during her gold medal-winning routine. She beat Averina by 0.15 points in Saturday’s final.

Ashram posted a video of her celebrating her achievement with her Israeli teammates to her Instagram page Sunday, which proved too much for hundreds of disgruntled Russian gymnastics fans.

“Aren’t you ashamed to share this?” wrote one Russian user in a comment that was liked by over 600 others. “Everyone knows that the medal is not yours,” according to the Times of Israel. Ashram’s win dented Russia’s long-running dominance of the event, with the country having taken home the gold medal from every Olympics since 1996.

There was much support, however, for Ashram — and not just from Russian-speaking Israelis. Romania’s 1976 gold medal-winning gymnast Nadia Comaneci was warm in her praise of the Israeli. “Congratulations. You made history,” she tweeted.


In Israel, top Bahrain diplomat says Iran nuke deal fueled violence, chaos
Visiting Israel on Sunday, a senior Bahraini diplomat blasted the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying that it had fueled violence and unrest across the region and caused the death of innocents.

“What did it leave us with?” Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmad al Khalifa, Bahrain’s Undersecretary for International Relations, said of the accord at a press briefing at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. “More crises and more chaos in the region.”

Khalifa said Bahrain had hoped the accord, known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), “would open up a new page for Iran and the region.

“But on the contrary, it has fueled crises across the Middle East. It has increased the number of refugees that have fled into Europe. It has caused more instigation of extremism and hatred in many different regions across the Middle East.”

Khalifa spoke during a four-day visit to Israel during which he will meet the president, prime minister and foreign minister.

“What we see is, speaking from a Bahraini perspective and the experience of my country with Iran, is continuous interference in domestic affairs in my country,” he continued. “Support of extremism and terrorism, continuous smuggling of arms and explosives and drugs and narcotics.”

Khalifa added that the JCPOA “has caused the death of tens of security forces and innocent civilians and thousands of injured security personnel.”


PM Naftali Bennett Declares, ‘We Will Not Accept Rocket Fire From Lebanon’
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned at Sunday morning’s cabinet meeting that Israel will not accept rockets being fired at it over its northern border and Lebanon must rein in those firing them, whatever their affiliation.

“The State of Lebanon and the Lebanese army must take responsibility for what is happening in their backyard. … It matters less to us whether it is a Palestinian group or independent rebels,” said Bennett, who added, “Israel will not accept shooting at its territory.”

Bennett’s remarks came just two days after Hezbollah admitted that it had fired around 20 rockets at Israel. The Iron Dome defense system intercepted 10 of them; six fell in open areas, while the rest fell in Lebanese territory.

This is the sixth such attack on Israel in recent months, and the first time that Hezbollah has taken responsibility for it.

The IDF responded by firing 40 artillery shells at uninhabited areas in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened that while both sides had chosen to strike open areas, the rules of current engagement could dictate that the Iranian proxy might attempt to strike Israel’s northern population centers.

Bennett spoke of the economic and political crisis shaking Lebanon, in which he said Tehran and Hezbollah are trying to drag Israel into conflict, and praised the “very important awakening” of Lebanese citizens against the influence of the terrorist movement and Iran in their country.


Honest Reporting: Media Reports Get Story Wrong as Hezbollah Attacks Israel
Worst of all came courtesy of a headline in Britain’s Daily Mail — one of the world’s most widely read news websites — after Hezbollah elected to join in: “Hezbollah fires ‘dozens’ of rockets into Israel from Lebanon in retaliation for Israeli air strikes.” Here, Hezbollah’s provocation is depicted as a reaction to Israel’s actions, even though Israel itself was responding to the earlier rocket fire emanating from Lebanon.

Moreover, this omission isn’t limited to the headline alone, but extends to the first seven paragraphs of the story. Only much lower down, buried deep in the article, is this essential background information provided.

Similarly grossly misleading was the headline in another British media outlet, The Independent, which headlined a piece filed by Bel Trew thus: “Hezbollah fires rockets after Israeli artillery strikes”.

The end result?

Readers were left with the impression that Israel was the aggressor here, and that Hezbollah was merely responding to being attacked.

This is a total inversion of what actually happened in reality.

Finally, special mention must go to the Irish Independent for taking an accurate headline from The Telegraph (UK), with which it has a content-sharing agreement, and replaced with a factually incorrect one.

The original Telegraph headline, “Hizbollah fires barrage of rockets into Israel in ‘very dangerous’ escalation of violence”, evidently had too negative a focus on Hezbollah for the Irish Independent’s liking, so it was removed. The headline it used instead? “Hezbollah fires ‘retaliation’ rockets at Israeli forces.”

According to the Irish Independent, Hezbollah’s rockets were a “retaliation” against “Israeli forces”. This is demonstrably false: the rockets were not aimed at Israeli forces, but did cause Israeli civilians in multiple towns to scramble for shelter. Headlines Frame the Story

Headlines are important. Nobody has the time to read every single article published — but as we scan through news websites and social media feeds, we all absorb headlines of pieces we don’t actually read. And even if we do read a piece, headlines frame the entire story.

That’s why it’s crucial that the media frame stories accurately and fairly. Unfortunately, not for the first time, the headlines generated after Israel came under attack have resulted in a misleading picture of reality.


BBC News website ignores rocket fire from Lebanon twice in two days
That attack was likewise ignored by the BBC News website but coverage did appear on the BBC Arabic site. The afternoon edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour’ included an item (from 30:04 here) introduced by presenter Paul Henley as follows:

Henley: “Tensions are spilling over on the Israeli-Lebanese border. The militant group Hizballah says it has fired dozens of rockets at open ground near Israeli positions. Israel is saying most were brought down by their air defences. The audio was posted by the Israeli Defence Force – this audio – on social media.”

Listeners heard an uninformative recording of the sound of explosions before Henley – who apparently has difficulty understanding the difference between artillery fire and airstrikes – went on:

Henley: “The Israelis have returned artillery fire. It was the first time Israel launched airstrikes in Lebanese territory since the 2006 Lebanon war and today is the first time since then that Hizballah has assumed responsibility for rocket fire, so this is clearly escalating.”

Listeners then heard a short interview with Israeli journalist Neri Zilber, who referred to “continuous rocket fire from southern Lebanon this past week and really over the past three months”. That includes an attack on July 20th that was also ignored by the BBC News website.

The fact that editors at the BBC News website – which is described by the corporation as “a permanent public record…in the public interest” – did not consider three separate incidents of rocket attacks launched from Lebanon against Israel in less than three weeks to be newsworthy obviously compromises that website’s own relevance and its frequently promoted claim to be a source of “news you can trust”.
Gaza resort bombed for holding mixed-gender concert
Bianco Resort, one of the Gaza Strip’s most luxurious seaside tourist sites, was attacked last Thursday with an explosive device. The attack came after the resort was accused by Muslim extremists of holding a mixed-gender concert. No one was hurt, but a wall surrounding the resort was damaged.

Palestinian sources accused terrorists belonging to Salafi-Jihadist groups of being behind the attack.

Members of Islamic State (ISIS)-inspired groups in the Gaza Strip accused the resort of holding a music concert for men and women on the beach of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

Some members of the groups said they had warned the owner against holding the event, but he ignored the warning.

Salafi-Jihadist terrorists have regularly clashed with Hamas members in the Gaza Strip over the past decade. Hamas has also arrested or killed some members of the groups.

On August 5, Issa Miqdad, one of the men affiliated with the groups, wrote on Facebook: “Today we went to Bianco Resort in order to deny the evil before it happens, as this resort will hold a mixed singing party tomorrow on the beach of Beit Lahiya. Therefore, we ask the [Hamas] government to stop this evil before it happens. I call on all preachers and sheikhs to publicly denounce this evil after the owner refused our request not to hold the party.”

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip reacted with mixed feelings to the bombing of the resort. Some expressed appreciation for the perpetrators, while others denounced the attack.
69 Hamas members sentenced to prison in Saudi Arabia
Hamas has expressed “shock” at the ruling issued by a Saudi court against a large number of Palestinians and Jordanians residing in the Kingdom.

According to Hamas, 69 of its Palestinian and Jordanian members and supporters were sentenced by a Saudi court on Sunday to prison terms ranging from three to 21 years.

The men were arrested three years ago and accused of affiliation with a terrorist organization and raising funds on its behalf. Hamas is an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been designated by Saudi Arabia and a number of Gulf states as a terrorist organization.

“These brothers did not commit what necessitated these harsh and unjustified sentences, as well as trial,” Hamas said in a statement. “All they did was support their cause and the people to which they belong, without any offense to the Kingdom and its people.”


Muslim Archeologists Baffled by Remains of Mysterious Ancient Temple Beneath Al Aqsa Mosque (satire)
Archaeologists working underneath the Temple Mount have announced a discovery that could potentially rewrite history faster than a Texas textbook. The team of Muslim archaeologists began work around the Haram esh-Sharif (The Temple Mount) a number of months ago, and it seems they’ve made a once-in-a-lifetime find.

“It appears that The Noble Sanctuary was built on top of a much older structure,” announced the team leader, Dr. Yousef Muhamad. “Though we were unable to ascertain the origins of the ruins. We’ve searched high and low for answers about the ancient builders. Asking people in the Mosque, looking through the Quran, and watching The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens.”

“Based on this research, our best guess at this point is that the ancient temple was a mosque built by some kind of proto-Muslim group… or by aliens that visited the Earth several millennia ago,” said Dr. Muhamad. “We’ve reached this conclusion after taking into account the fact that no one had lived in the region between the time of the Canaanites and the Muslim conquest of the area.”
Lebanon and its Ticking Bombs
Lebanon's problems are deeply political. The consensus on which the Lebanese state was founded from the start has been badly shaken. Formal government structures have been duplicated, and at times replaced, by shadowy organs answerable to no one except, perhaps, foreign paymasters. The minimum rule of law that had survived many upheavals including a full-scale civil war has been replaced by the rule of the gunman.

The outside world cannot abandon Lebanon to its fate.

On the positive side, the region and beyond in the world needs Lebanon as a haven of contact, dialogue and peace, while a Lebanon turned into a platform for "exporting revolution" and real terror, along with drugs and dirty money, could harm everyone around or close to the Mediterranean basin.
Tzipi Hotovely: Time for ‘global action’ against the threat of Iran, says Tzipi Hotovely
One of those in charge was Ebrahim Raisi, the man who was sworn in as the new president of Iran last Thursday after winning elections in which more than a half of the electorate chose not to vote. Candidates were pre-screened by the Supreme Leader Khamenei, who according to reports is grooming Raisi to succeed him. The choosing of the man called The Butcher of Tehran represents the danger Iran poses, not only for its own people but also for the international community.

More than being a leading person in Iranian internal oppression, responsible for the execution of 30,000 people including the hanging of homosexuals from cranes, Raisi represents a continuation of the destabilising foreign policy of Iran under the Supreme Leader.

This policy, led by the Revolutionary Guards Corps, is exporting jihadi ideology across the region, violating international law, using deception and sacrificing women and children to achieve its aims.

Recently the world saw once again the risk Iran poses when it launched an explosive drone attack on a civilian ship killing two crew members, British and Romanian, off the coast of Oman.

It was the latest of four attacks on civilian ships in 2021 alone.

Iran is targeting freedom of navigation, a principle that is a cornerstone of international law and on which global trade depends.

The attack was condemned by all G7 countries. Iran denied involvement and this is the main problem. You have a rogue state which believes that through violence and lies it can gain influence.

Iran arms jihadi groups in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and of course Lebanon. It targets anyone who does not think like it and sees the West and its values of freedom, equality and diversity as a threat to its fundamentalist path, which aims to send its people back to the Middle Ages.
Confused by Tehran’s Latest Maneuvers? Don’t Be
The inauguration of a new president of Iran has launched a wave of articles in mainstream publications like the New York Times attempting to explain the meaning of the “election” of Ebrahim Raisi. The ascension of Raisi, who is considered a close ally of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is widely seen as a sign that the regime is now in the hands of “hardliners” rather than “moderates” like former President Hassan Rouhani. But much like when Rouhani took over from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2013, these efforts do more to misinform than enlighten readers. The attempt to regard the byplay in Tehran as a funhouse mirror version of politics in a democratic country is one more example of Western analysts projecting their own values and outlook on Iran’s theocratic system rather than the product of any genuine insight.

There are some differences between these figures. Rouhani could pretend to be at least more reasonable-sounding than Ahmadinejad, who wasn’t shy about openly expressing his Jew-hatred and Holocaust denial. By contrast, Raisi’s role as a member of a death panel that ordered the execution of 5,000 Iranian dissidents marks him as a cold-blooded killer who has been more closely involved with the work of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the terrorist arm of the regime, than Rouhani had been.

But just as there was no presidential election in any real sense — since all candidates must be approved by the Supreme Leader before they can run, resulting in no real choice at all for those who are forced to go through the charade of voting — the notion of competing factions inside the Tehran government is equally misleading.


The West Must Counter Iran’s Maritime Terrorism
The Iranians are adept at pushing boundaries. In any crisis, they pull the rope to its absolute limit, right to the point before it snaps, in order to gauge the West’s response. When the Iranian tanker Grace1 was stopped by British forces in Gibraltar in the summer of 2019, the Iranians hijacked the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero. Ultimately, the British released the Iranian vessel and the Iranians released the British tanker, ending that particular crisis.

In the latest incident, the Iranians, it appears, activated GPS jammers that disrupted several ships’ navigation systems, and sent armed assailants who didn’t identify as Iranian to hijack a vessel. The Iranians apparently want to show the West that they possess a variety of capabilities in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, and that if the West decides to act, as its leaders have suggested, Tehran has a diverse array of responses at its disposal.

There’s no doubt whatsoever that this crisis with Iran necessitates a Western response. Iran’s actions are maritime terrorism for all intents and purposes, and contravene international law. The West has more than a few diplomatic tools at its disposal for deterring the Iranians, which must now be implemented.

In the background, meanwhile, the Biden administration and the other signatory countries (P5+1) want to bring Iran back to the negotiating table and renew the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal.

The talks in Vienna were paused to allow the Iranians to finish the process of replacing their president, and are supposed to recommence in the coming days. Will Iran’s actions and the West’s interests prevent Western countries, spearheaded by the United Kingdom, from retaliating against Tehran’s terroristic activities? Time will tell.


IHRA Chair Urges All Central American Nations to Adopt International Antisemitism Definition
Ambassador Chris J. Lazaris — Greek Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Presidency — addressed the Central America Forum for Israel last week, and he urged the nations of the region to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism to help combat rising Jew-hatred worldwide.

“One of the best ways to fight antisemitism is to use IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism,” Ambassador Lazaris said. “One cannot effectively fight antisemitism if one cannot define it.”

The IHRA definition, Ambassador Lazaris pointed out, had become the global “gold standard,” and was used for monitoring, training, and awareness-raising purposes.

“As this conference is dedicated to Central America, it is important to note that the Congress of Guatemala accepted this definition in January 2021,” he said. “Argentina and Uruguay have also done so from the Latin America region. I would encourage all the countries to follow their lead.”

The Central America Forum for Israel — hosted by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) and Center for Jewish Impact, in partnership with the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, the Guatemala-Israel Friendship League, and the Jewish Community of Guatemala — brought together top regional leaders, including Guatemalan President Dr. Alejandro Giammattei, to reject Jew-hatred and unite in a powerful show of support for the State of Israel.
New Google project in Israel aims to use AI to help detect colon cancer
Google’s Verily Life Sciences has said it will open a research and development center in Israel that will focus on applying artificial intelligence technology to biomedical problems.

The R&D center will move forward with research conducted by Google Health and the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Verily said on Thursday.

Verily, formerly called Google Life Sciences, is an independent subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company. It focuses on life sciences and health care, with the goal of using the world’s health data to prevent and manage disease.

Since it was launched in 2015, it has partnered with leading life science and medical device companies and government organizations.

In Israel, the initiative will focus on using artificial intelligence to detect colorectal polyps, growths that appear on the surface of the large intestine that can be cancerous.

The Google project aims to use the technology to better diagnose and treat colorectal cancer, which kills over 900,000 people worldwide per year. The standard procedure to detect and remove the polyps is the colonoscopy, which studies suggest misses between 22-28% of polyps, Google said in a blog post on the new project. Around 19 million colonoscopies are carried out in the US each year.

In a typical colonoscopy, gastroenterologists carry out a visual examination with a camera. The Verily research project hopes using an AI system, training with hundreds of hours of colonoscopy videos, can help gastroenterologists detect polyps they might otherwise miss.
Leading Israeli gaming firm CrazyLabs acquired by Swedish company
The Swedish company Embracer Group has said it will acquire Israeli startup CrazyLabs, a developer and publisher of mobile games.

Embracer Group did not disclose financial details in its Thursday announcement of the agreement, but said the purchase will be made in both cash and Embracer company shares and the current management of CrazyLabs will remain in place.

CrazyLabs had the third most downloads of all mobile gaming publishers in 2020. The firm has recorded 4.5 billion downloads to date and has over 110 million monthly active users, the announcement said.

The company generated revenue of $152.9 million between July 2020 and June 2021, Embracer Group said.

CrazyLabs produces casual, lifestyle and hyper-casual games, which it defines as “lightweight, instantly playable and infinitely replayable — making them highly addictive and very engaging.”

Some of its leading hyper-casual titles are “Phone Case DIY,” “Acrylic Nails,” “Tie Dye” and “Run Sausage Run.” The company’s hyper-casual games had over 480 million downloads last year.
Jewish Actor Josh Peck Teaches Ryan Seacrest Yiddish Word ‘Shvitz’
Josh Peck gave talk show host Ryan Seacrest a brief lesson in Yiddish during the Jewish actor’s virtual guest appearance on “Live with Kelly and Ryan” on Monday.

Peck, who stars in the Disney+ show “Turner & Hooch,” was asked by Jewish actress Katie Lowes, the morning show’s guest co-host, what he misses the most about his life before the coronavirus pandemic. Peck replied, “I’m a bit of a ‘shvitz’ guy. I like a good sweat, and you just can’t do that post-COVID. Not right now.”

Lowes then proceeded to explain to a confused Seacrest and the audience that “shvitz” means sweat. She asked Peck to clarify, “So you miss going into a sauna or a steam room or something like that?” and Peck responded that he misses going to a sauna for a “detox.”

Trying to understand, Seacrest repeated the Yiddish word and asked if “shvitz” is a “self-induced sweat” and “What if I go to a hammam? Is that similar?” Lowes then explained to Seacrest the difference between “shvitzing” and “having a shvitz.”
The Jewish ‘keffiyeh’ goes back to pre-Islamic times
The keffiyeh is associated with Bedouin Arabs and has even come to symbolise the Palestinian ‘resistance’. But Jews have a millennial history of wearing a similar head-covering, called a sudra. The HaRimon blog explains:
For millennia, Jewish men, particularly Torah scholars, have covered their heads and/or necks with a woven cloth called a 住讜讚专讗 (sudra, sudara) or 住讜讚专 (sudar). Jews in late antiquity routinely wore sudarin, and the garment is consequently mentioned frequently in the Mishnah — a written record of Jewish common law, and daily life in the Land of Israel, compiled in the first two centuries of the Common Era. The Jewish Encyclopedia, published in twelve volumes between 1901 and 1906, explains that ‘[t]he Israelites most probably had a head-dress similar to that worn by the Bedouins … a keffieh folded into a triangle, and placed on the head with the middle ends hanging over the neck to protect it.’

The encyclopedia also says that, in later times, Jews wrapped their headcloths around a small cap ‘to shield the other parts of the head-covering from perspiration.’ Even today, some Yemeni Jewish men still wear sudarin, usually wrapped around a central felt cap called a 讻讜诪转讗 (komtah), to form a headdress similar to a turban.

Rabbi Marcus Jastrow’s scholarly Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, written in the late 19th century, defines sudra as a ‘scarf wound around the head and hanging down over the neck, turban’. Rabbi Ernest Klein’s 1987 Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language defines it as a ‘scarf’ or ‘shawl’. The word itself is Aramaic, but its etymology is disputed. Klein asserts that it is related to the Latin sudarium (handkerchief, napkin), while Jastrow regards the similarity as a coincidence. The Babylonian Talmud, in tractate Shabbat, offers an acronymic etymology, claiming that sudra is an acronym, derived from a biblical verse which states that ‘the counsel of the Lord is with those who fear Him’. While this may seem fanciful, it is certainly in keeping with the known origins of many Jewish words, both classical and modern, as well as the ancient minhag (Jewish custom) of covering one’s head to demonstrate reverence to God.







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